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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181511">the secret biography of Donald Duck</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_undead_gamer_45/pseuds/an_undead_gamer_45'>an_undead_gamer_45</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Disney Ducks (Comics), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), Kingdom Hearts (Video Games), Legend of the Three Caballeros (Cartoon), PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Donald Duck, Crossover, Donald Duck Needs a Hug, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Discovery, donald duck is awesome</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:54:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>185,393</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181511</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_undead_gamer_45/pseuds/an_undead_gamer_45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people would think Donald has lived a fairly boring life, knowing him as Scrooge's bumbling nephew and nothing more.</p><p>Most people would be wrong, for few know who the real Donald Duck is: a superhero, a navy captain, a secret agent, a crusader, a wizard, and the world's greatest father.<br/>This is the untold story of Donald Fauntleroy Duck, the most incredible duck to ever live.</p><p>(Now has it's own tv tropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheSecretBiographyOfDonaldDuck)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Donald Duck/Kay K (Disney: DoubleDuck), José Carioca &amp; Donald Duck &amp; Panchito Pistoles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>657</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1030</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. first discovery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>It was a surprisingly quiet day in McDuck Manor. The family just finished a three-day bender, leaving the kids with nothing to do.</p><p>Scrooge was sleeping the weariness away. Della following his Uncle’s footsteps was passed out in her room. Launchpad was the only one not asleep, but he currently wasn’t present at the Manor.</p><p>Dewey and Webby tried to make it a mystery the kids could waste some time on, but Mrs. Beakly quickly intercepted.</p><p>“Launchpad is working his second job in St. Canard,” she scolded, “it’s best you children don’t bother him.”</p><p>With nothing left to do and no one left to bother, the children were left to do the only activity available...rummaging through their families things.</p><p>“Why are we going through Uncle Donald’s things?” the red clad triplet inquired.</p><p>“Why?” Webby turned around and faced the elder triplet with a gleeful and somewhat scorning expression.</p><p>“Don’t you want to see all the memorabilia, a great adventurer like your Uncle has collected over the years?”</p><p>“Uncle Donald,” Louie began voice stern but tired, “is not cool enough to have treasure in his house boat, also if he did I would have already found it and sold it.”</p><p>Webby was ready to protest, but before she could speak the third triplet interrupted her.</p><p>“I got to agree with Louie on this one, Webby. Aside from the really cool adventurers Uncle Donald had with Uncle Scrooge and Mom he hasn’t really done anything all that interesting.”</p><p>Readying a retort, Webby stopped herself when she noticed a hastily wrapped package in the corner. She patted towards it, garnering the other boys attention.</p><p>Dusting it off and carefully investigating it. Webby noted how suspicious this all seemed to be. A mysterious box, terribly wrapped as if on a hurry, and tucked away. All these clues seem to lead Webby to an easy conclusion: this is another McDuck family secret.</p><p>The boys seemed to have made the same conclusion and looked at the box anxiously.</p><p>“What kind of secret would Uncle Donald possibly hide?” Huey asked though the tone of his voice betrayed the humor of his words.</p><p>Dewey, impatient as ever, snatched the parcel from Webby’s hand and ripped the poor wrapping to shreds. Anticlimactically what they found was just a regular book.</p><p>“A book?!,” Dewey exclaimed, “lame.”</p><p>He was about to chuck it behind his shoulder before, Huey snatched the book from Dewey’s hands.</p><p>Opening up the cover, the red clad triplets eyes grew wide as saucers. Noticing their brother’s reaction, the rest of the children looked over Huey’s shoulder and read the book’s title:</p><p>
  <b>“The Secret Biography of Donald F. Duck”</b>
</p><p>“Wait since when does uncle Donald have a biography written about him?” Asked Dewey.</p><p>Huey started flipping through the book only to quickly realize something, the entire thing was written in entries with dates, some longer than others but still told a coherent story and the handwriting? He’d recognize his uncle’s messy penmanship anywhere, Donald wrote this entire book himself.</p><p>“Oh great, a diary? Yawn, what? Is it just ten years about his time in the navy? oh the thrilling adventures of Donald Duck the cabin boy!” Louie sarcastically remarked.</p><p>“Well there is a section about the navy.” Huey replied, skimming through the book. “But there’s way more than that, this thing goes all the way back to Donald’s high school years and mentions...aliens? Secret agents? Evil-”</p><p>The junior woodchuck was cut off by Webby literally tearing the book from his hands with a girlish squeal. “Oh my gosh! The untold tales of Donald Duck, years and years of history finally revealed!”</p><p>“Wait what? What do you mean untold tales?”</p><p>“Well you see, there's tons of records about Scrooge's past and all of his adventures, and plenty about Della Duck too, but nothing about Donald! There's so many gaps in his history where nobody knew where he was or what he was doing, not even his own family so he must have been hiding something! Now all his secrets can finally come to light!”</p><p>Huey snatched the book back. “Hold it there Webby, this is uncle Donald’s privacy we’re talking about here. Sure I’m a bit curious about his past, but is it really okay to pry into his personal life like this? He must have had his reasons to keep it a secret after all.”</p><p>Webby frowned before turning towards the other two triplets. “All in favor of prying into Donald Duck’s history say aye!”</p><p>“Aye!” “aye!” Dewey and Louie said in near perfect unison.</p><p>Huey sighed, “well I guess I’m out voted then.” the red triplet promptly surrendered the book over to Webby who eagerly turned it over to the first entry….</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the origins of Paperinik</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Before you say anything about how I portrayed Donald here. Note that Paperinik started out as a persona used by Donald to prank Uncle Scrooge, he didn't become a full fledged superhero until later.<br/>Not to mention he's still a teenager, still trying to find his way in the world, he's bound to make a few mistakes</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>The story of Donald Fauntleroy Duck has been nothing short of spectacular, despite appearances the duck has gone through more adventures through the long winding road that is his life, accomplishing great things that most men could only dream of doing and venturing to places unknown. And it all started one fine summer day in Duckburg.</p><p>There was nothing particularly special about this day, the weather was average, no big schemes or plots being hatched by the cities various millionaires (or in Scrooge’s case, billionaires), and no big disasters either. It was just another average day in the city with nothing notable going on at all; not even for the Donald Duck who was currently being driven across town in his uncle’s limo.</p><p>“Remind me what we’re doing again?” Grumbled the sixteen year old duck.</p><p>“For the last time Donald, I purchased an old abandoned villa at the edge of duckburg for dirt cheap so I could fix it up and sell it for a profit and you” Scrooge said, jabbing a finger into his nephew’s chest. “Agreed to help with the repairs, to pay me back for that whole pudding incident that you and Della cooked up yesterday.”</p><p>“That doesn’t explain why she isn’t here with us.” Donald replied with crossed arms.</p><p>“Della is spending the day cleaning up your mess, alone, she’s already doing her time. Now it’s time to do yours; oh look, we’re here!”</p><p>Donald’s jaw dropped at the sight of the dilapidated home, the whole place seemed less like a luxury residence and more like something you’d see on the cover of ‘haunted houses monthly’. Several of the windows were broken, ivy was crawling up the brick walls in an attempt to devour the home, and paint was peeling and chipping in several places. How long had this place been abandoned for?</p><p>“I have to fix all of this?” Donald asked incredulously.</p><p>“Oh quit yer bellyaching, it’s not as bad as it looked.” Scrooge replied, dragging his nephew inside of the house.</p><p>Luckily for Donald, his uncle was right as the inside was far more intact than the outside. Sure there was a thick layer of cobwebs and dust coating every surface, along with a few broken boards, burnt out light fixtures, and torn up carpeting but those could be very easily fixed; even Donald could do it, which is probably why Scrooge voluntold him for such a task.</p><p>The problem was that despite the ease of fixing the place up, the entire villa was huge and it would take him all day to complete the repairs, even if everything went right for him which it never did. It’s a good thing Scrooge hired some extra- wait.</p><p>“You did hire some extra help, right? I’m not doing this whole place alone, right?”</p><p>The laughter that erupted from Scrooge was the only answer he needed.</p><p>“Ach, lad ya crack me up. Anyways, I’ve got a truck coming by shortly with all the tools you need to make the repairs, call me when you're done! I’ve got a few board meetings to attend to today.”</p><p>Donald grumbled, he should have opted to clean up the pudding with Della.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Almost there, aaaand DONE!” exclaimed Donald, sliding down the ladder and admiring his handiwork.</p><p>He was right, it did take him all day to clean and repair this place from top to bottom as the sun was now setting on the ocean’s horizon, painting it in wonderful shades of orange, red, and yellow. Despite the vacuum cleaner blowing up, him getting electrocuted twice, and having to fight a horse sized tarantula in the basement, Donald had gotten through this whole affair almost completely unscathed. A rare case for him but that was probably because he was in an isolated environment.</p><p>The lighting was hooked back up, the windows had been replaced and polished, every bit of dust and grime had been wiped clean from the house, if he was being perfectly honest the duck was really proud of how good of a job he did.</p><p>‘The old man had better appreciate this, it took a lot of hard work to get all this finished.’ Donald thought to himself as he leaned against a bust of the mansion’s previous owner to admire his handiwork, only to immediately fall over when the bust seemed to slide out from under him with an audible click.</p><p>Falling to the floor, Donald prepared to let out a long string of curses he learned from sharing a roof with a scotsman for most of his life; only to have his rage instantly quelled when he saw that by leaning on the bust, he had flipped a hidden switch which revealed a secret passage hidden behind a bookcase.</p><p>He wasn’t entirely sure if Scrooge even knew about this and neglected to tell him or if he was completely oblivious to the secret room’s existence. But to Donald it didn’t matter, in any case he had to investigate otherwise he’d never hear the end of it if that secret room sprang a curse on whatever poor sap bought the place.</p><p>Flicking on a flash light, Donald traversed down the old stone steps into the darkness. The only sound being the whistle of wind that blew through the secret passage. Any normal person would likely be scared witless at having to go down into a deep dark room, but Donald wasn’t a normal Duck. Being Scrooge Mcduck’s sidekick meant that this was a weekly occurrence for him, so he treated it as nothing more than a casual stroll in the park.</p><p>When he reached the bottom, the first thing he noticed was that this room seemed to be far older than all the other rooms in the house; the walls being made out of stone bricks as opposed to the red brick and wood in the rest of the villa, torches lining the walls instead of electric lights, and even more dust and cobwebs. As if this place had been completely forgotten about.</p><p>But it wasn’t until donald saw a splash of color in the darkness that he flicked his light over it curiosity. What he was met with was the sight of a mannequin behind a glass case, wearing a brightly colored outfit consisting of yellow boots, a black and red jumpsuit with a golden belt, a red and blue cape, and a black mask. Right next to the outfit was an old, leather bound book sitting on a pedestal.</p><p>Curiosity quickly getting the better of Donald, as well as the possibility of showing up his uncle for once, the duck picked up the book and began to read through it. This gave him insight as to exactly who previously owned this villa.</p><p>The journal told of the exploits of one Lord John Lamont Quackett, better known as fantomallard, who was not only the owner of the villa back in the 1920s but also a gentleman thief and Duckburg’s first vigilante superhero. It was the classic superhero story, a rich socialite who used his spare time to fight crime and the forces of evil that drifted through duckburg; from crime families, to monsters, to a shadowy organization running the city from the shadows. Fantomallard did it all, while wetting his beak with a few ill-gotten goods in the process.</p><p>Donald was only halfway through the book when he heard the front door creep open.</p><p>“DOOONAAALD! WHERE ARE YA LAD?!” Scrooge’s voice echoed throughout the mansion</p><p>The teenage duck jumped up in surprise, slamming the book shut and generating a cloud of dust in the process. Before he even knew what he was doing, the duck stuffed the book down his shirt, rushed up the stairs, and put the bust back into place, closing the secret passageway behind him just as Scrooge walked into the room.</p><p>“Ah, there ya are. I must say I’m pleasantly surprised, I was half expecting to come back to see the villa on fire but you’d done a fine job here today.” The billionaire said, giving his nephew a good old pat on the back.</p><p>“Uh-huh” Donald replied, trying not to gaze towards the bookshelf.</p><p>“Tell ya what, how about ya take tomorrow off? I was gonna have ya polish all the gold coins in the money bin like ya always do but I think you’ve earned a break lad.”</p><p>Well who was Donald to pass up one of his uncle’s rare moments of generosity?</p><p>Although, as he was led out of the villa, he felt ever so slightly guilty about hiding his discovery from Scrooge who was very clearly unaware of the secret room’s existence. Then again what Scrooge didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Right?</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Donald flopped down onto his bed, completely exhausted from the day’s events. He had spent the better part of the day playing handyman to some eccentric millionaire’s old abandoned villa and uncovered a MAJOR secret in the process. One that he and he alone knew about and he planned on keeping it that way for the time being; it wasn’t often he could pull one over on his family.</p><p>After ensuring he was alone, the teenage duck pulled the old journal out from it’s hiding space in his shirt and soon became lost in the tales of Fantomallard and his adventures as the shadowy protector of Duckburg. As he read through his entries, Donald found himself identifying more and more with the vigilante.</p><p>John Lamont Quackette created his superhero persona as a way to get back at the more snobbish members of the aristocracy who greased the wheels of their empires with the blood, sweat, and tears of their underlings while taking all the credit for their hard work; a message that very clearly resonated with Donald who grew up surrounded by such uppity jerks, his cousin Gladstone in particular standing out as a particular example of the insufferable socialite. The more Donald read the more he saw himself in the gentleman thief, the way he acted like an incompetent fool in everyday life to hide his hidden skill, the way he channeled his inner rage into a force to be reckoned with</p><p>“He’s just like me, sick and tired of taking it from the higher ups, fighting for the little man with nothing but his wits and fists. I could be just like him...oh who am I kidding.”</p><p>Donald flopped back onto his bed after the impromptu speech, letting out a huff in the process</p><p>He wasn’t a superhero, he was Donald Duck, the dorky teenage sidekick of Scrooge Mcduck that always found himself in trouble with the worst luck in the world; he was clumsy, temperamental, and just a complete screw up when it came to most things. He could never be like Fantomallard.</p><p>“Still it’s a nice idea. Donald duck, the superhero.” Remarked the grunge duckling.</p><p>Three days later, Donald changed his mind and decided to make that idea a reality….sort of.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>It had been an almost impulsive decision really, but Donald managed to talk himself into it after too many trust fund blowhards pushed him around while trying to get a piece of his uncle. The way they stepped all over him and batted him aside like he was a dumb kid. A duck could only take so much abuse and after being splattered with mud from another would be millionaire whose dumb idea had been turned down by Scrooge Mcduck (a double decker couch? Who would buy that?), Donald decided that the local aristocracy deserved to be knocked down a few pegs.</p><p>So he broke into the Villa Rosa under the shroud of night and smuggled the costume out of the large house, along with a bag full of smoke screens, cherry bombs, and several other tools that would be needed for a vigilante’s arsenal, as well as detailed instructions on how to make more.</p><p>When he slipped on the costume for the first time, Donald couldn’t help but feel a wave of confidence wash over him. The suit fit him almost perfectly, snug as a bug in a rug, and when he looked in the mirror he found that he pulled off the look extremely well; almost as if he was meant to have it. This strengthened his resolve on what he was about to do.</p><p>Putting together a bag full of pranks and practical jokes, Donald took off into the night and started making his way through town. It didn’t take a lot of effort to find out where some of these rich idiots lived, they just loved to keep themselves in the spotlight after all, their locations were practically public knowledge. Something they would pay dearly for.</p><p>He didn’t do anything too bad to them obviously, a few slashed tires here, a few stink bombs thrown in windows there, and a couple defaced homes and art pieces just for fun; stuff that would tick them off without actually hurting anyone. He may have been on a quest for petty revenge, but he wasn’t about to become a villain.</p><p>What struck Donald as odd during this whole affair was that his trademarked bad luck never once struck him, sure he tripped and fell on his face a few times scaling fences or nearly got his cover blown by a poorly placed security guard. Outside of a few minor scrapes and bruises, the whole thing went off without a hitch and Donald returned home the next morning, exhausted but satisfied.</p><p>When he woke up a few hours later, he heard about the fallout from his actions on the local news and it was glorious.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“This is Bruce Brandt with channel 4 here to deliver breaking news concerning a serial vandal that struck late last night.”</p><p>Donald looked up from his breakfast of burnt toast and scrambled eggs at the news report currently playing on the television.</p><p>“Many of duckburg’s wealthier residents had a terrible morning when they awoke to find that many of their homes and personal vehicles had been vandalized by an unknown individual. Tires were slashed, priceless pieces of artwork had been scribbled on, and even one home had to be evacuated from the terrible smell wafting through the halls.”</p><p>The report then cut to a well dressed goose.</p><p>“It was like burning hot garbage! I’ll have to replace everything in my bedroom just to get rid of the smell!”</p><p>Then a rotund beagle.</p><p>“Millions, those paintings cost me millions! And now they’re worthless because someone thought it would have been funny to draw a few mustaches on them!”</p><p>Then an elderly blue jay.</p><p>“Because of that punk, whoever he is, my entire fleet of vehicles was ruined. Now I won’t be able to enter any of the stock car races later today.”</p><p>The report continued in this vein for quite some time, showing all the humiliation Donald had wrought upon those millionaires. What was significant was that nobody seemed to know who this mysterious vandal was at all, sure Donald had appeared on a few of their security cameras but the superhero outfit had done its job of concealing his identity perfectly; it may have been obvious that it was a duck in those videos, but when you lived in Duckburg where the majority of the population consisted of ducks that didn’t really narrow the list of suspects.</p><p>Donald had just struck a blow against some of the wealthiest people in town and with the police seemingly stumped for any sort of leads, he had completely gotten away with it.</p><p>For the first time in a longtime, Donald felt amazing. Like he was on top of the world.</p><p>“Somebody’s looking happy.” Della remarked through a mouthful of bagel.</p><p>Donald simply returned a smile. “I had a good night.”</p><p>“Oh, what? Did you finally find an open mic night that didn’t boo you off stage in the first five seconds?” Della playfully teased him.</p><p>“Hey one of these days I’ll be famous for my music, you’ll see!”</p><p>“Sure you will donnie. So how about that Vandal guy?”</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”</p><p>“It’s gotta take some serious guts and brains to pull off something like this and not even get caught. I would love to meet him, he must be awesome!”</p><p>Donald had to suppress a chuckle, if only his sister knew.</p><p>“What I can’t figure out is why he didn’t hit scrooge. I mean he hit all the other rich guys in duckburg, why not the richest duck in the world?”</p><p>Donald shrugged, trying to look unassuming. “Maybe he didn’t think he deserved to get pranked?”</p><p>Della seemed satisfied by this explanation as she nodded in agreement, it did seem reasonable. Compared to the other members of the duckburg upper class, Scrooge was fairly beloved; sure he had his fair share of enemies but they were bad people to begin with.</p><p>“Still, I can’t help but wonder what made him want to do all this? Was it revenge? Anger? Or just for kicks?”</p><p>“Della, don’t you think you might be getting a bit too into this?” said Donald, trying to steer the conversation topic away from his actions last night. “It was probably just a one time show to make a statement to the city, some kid looking for attention.”</p><p>“No way, this was too planned out to be in the heat of the moment. He’s probably planning his next attack as we speak.” Della gasped. “That’s it! That’s why he didn’t hit uncle Scrooge, he needed more planning time to get past the mansion’s defenses. We have to warn him!”</p><p>“About what? Some prankster is going to spray paint a peace symbol on the front of the mansion? That his limo’s gas tank is going to be filled with sugar? Della, the guy isn’t the Beagle Boys or the Phantom Blot. He’s just a vandal, barely worth Scrooge’s no- and she’s gone.” Donald grumbled, his sister having run off to ‘warn’ Scrooge about the coming danger.</p><p>Turning back to the television, Donald saw that some of the working class citizens were now being interviewed and surprisingly, some were actually praising his actions. Saying it was about time someone knocked the trust fund fairies down a peg or two, that it was hilarious to see his handiwork on display, and of course some calling him a menace. The feeling he got from seeing something he did, not Scrooge or Della, but he himself did filled him with an odd feeling of pride.</p><p>Which is probably why he kept going out and doing it.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>The next few weeks were amazing, in a way. Donald had continued to be a thorn in the side of the local fat cats and it had made him a local legend; a mysterious rebel that struck in the dark of night, leaving behind mild annoyances that made their victims want to tear their hair out in frustration, they had even put a name to this mysterious figure: Paperinik.</p><p>Donald himself was to blame for that, he got the idea from Quackette’s journal to give his new persona a name and after a quick adventure in italy with his uncle and sister; the teenage duck came up with Paperinik and celebrated his new name by spray painting it across the mayor’s home after he had cut funding to the local orphanages.</p><p>That’s another thing he had started to change, at first he was only hitting the people who had rubbed him the wrong way and pushed him around who coincidentally just happened to be the people that are often associated with Scrooge. But slowly he began to change his views from rich jerks that messed with him to rich jerks in general, people who used their wealth and power to step all over the little guys, this made him seem like more of the Robin Hood type and certainly won him a few more allies amongst the populace of duckburg. There were still people that were calling him a menace to society, but now there were alot more people praising his acts.</p><p>As his fame grew, so did his skills. He started out small with some mild vandalism before moving on to more elaborate pranks that took time to set up, he went from stink bombing a single room to an entire house, popped tires became spray paint jobs, and so on and so forth. But he never went too far, Donald was very meticulous in ensuring that nobody got hurt as a result of his pranks; he was a trickster, not a menace. He had even started being a bit more daring in how he chose his targets, sometimes striking at one of the parties they held to get pranks enmasse as opposed to getting back at one single person.</p><p>Why was he doing this you ask? Well Donald had plenty of excuses, but at the end of they day they were just that: excuses. The real reason that he did it is because he had finally found something he wasn’t a completely screw up at, as Donald Duck he was the bumbling sidekick of Scrooge Mcduck that always tripped up the booby traps, that always got caught in the crossfire of whatever treasure they were hunting this week, that always got stuck in some weird state at the end of an adventure like being shrunken down or being baked into a cookie. As Paperinik however, all of that went away; he was confident, he was skilled, he was a mysterious legend that drove plenty of rich snobs crazy and represented the downtrodden who had finally had enough. It gave him a sense of self respect that he oh so desperately needed and made him feel like he was actually someone for a change. Maybe that was a bad reason to keep doing this, but it felt too right to stop.</p><p>After a month of annoying the Duckburg aristocracy, all of that changed and Paperinik became a whole new duck.</p><p>It was at a Glomgold soiree, the false-scottish duck had just built his headquarters in duckburg. (likely as a way to get back at Scrooge) and had invited all of the rich people in Duckburg to celebrate at said headquarters, even Scrooge but that was more likely so that the billionaire’s ‘rival’ could rub it in his face that he was quickly catching up to him. Of course Scrooge had brought them along and Donald simply couldn’t resist taking a shot to humiliate Glomgold; while the rest of the party was distracted by a shouting match between the two scottish ducks, Donald took the opportunity to slip away and start the sequel to the pudding incident in Glumgold’s new office.</p><p>After hooking up the firecrackers to the pudding balloons, he was all set to flood the place with pudding. Before he could light the fuse however, he heard a commotion coming from the main ballroom. At first he assumed it was just one of Glomgold’s tantrums and went back to the task at hand.</p><p>Then he heard the gunshots and rushed down to the party to investigate.</p><p>When Donald arrived, he was shocked to see what had occurred while he was gone. There were some thugs in suits that had raided the party, brandishing weapons and herding up all the guests while a falcon that seemed to be the leader was yelling demands into his cellphone. It was then that Donald became acutely aware of the red and blue flashing light outside of the mansion.</p><p>Assuming the worst, Donald’s eyes started to dart around the room from the limited viewpoint that he could get through the keyhole. Seeing an unconscious Glomgold amongst the hostages did nothing to put him at ease, whoever these guys were they certainly weren’t working with Glomgold which meant that they were actually competent. Then he spotted his family.</p><p>Scrooge was tied to a pillar with chains, a smart decision given his reputation, and a wolf thug keeping a gun trained on the old duck. His sister Della on the other hand was pinned to the ground by a female bird in a yellow hoodie, blade pressed against his sister’s throat.</p><p>Donald began to panic, he had just stumbled right into a hostage situation and both Scrooge and Della were out of commission, leaving him as the only one who could do anything about it.</p><p>His first instinct, obviously, was to run and get help. But then a second thought came to mind, one concerning the journal of Lord Quackette. Fantomallard wasn’t just a gentleman thief that liked to annoy the rich, he was also a superhero that fought for the weak and the innocent. By taking the costume, Donald had inadvertently agreed to take up the mantle of Fantomallard and uphold his legacy. Was he really about to turn tail and not only spit on that legacy but abandon his family when they needed him most?</p><p>No, no he was not. He was better than that.</p><p>Steadying his breath and calming his nerves, Donald got himself ready for the inevitable brawl. He threw out a handful of smoke bombs into the room, dashing through the door when they exploded and tackled the female bird off of his sister. Seizing the opportunity, Della lept into action and moved to help her uncle.</p><p>This was going to be a night everyone was going to remember, that was for sure.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“I am now standing in front of the newly constructed Glomgold industry headquarters where a party meant to celebrate the opening of the office building was hijacked by a gang of criminals paid by an unknown party. After taking hostages the group demanded a helicopter along with several hundred thousand dollars at the request of their employer, only for their ploy to be foiled at the hand of local legend: Paperinik.”</p><p>Donald couldn’t help but crack a smile at the blurry photo of him landing a flying kick against the taller of the two wolves that came on screen.</p><p>“Reports say that the vigilante appeared out of seemingly nowhere in a cloud of smoke and freed Della and Scrooge Mcduck before teaming up with the aforementioned duo to bring the criminals down and free the other hostages. Paperinik then disappeared shortly after the last thug was dispatched and has not been sighted since. Here today, giving his firsthand account about the events: flintheart Glomgold.”</p><p>Donald tuned out the rest of the report after that, his uncle’s rival no doubt weaving the tale of how he was the real hero of the evening and Paperinik was actually taking orders from him. He already heard all that he needed to.</p><p>It was three days since he had performed his first act of heroism as Paperinik and he was still riding high from it. Della had been gushing non-stop about how she got to fight side by side with THE Paperinik, the urban legend, and even Scrooge had begrudgingly admitted that maybe the kid wasn’t so bad after all.</p><p>Donald was still convinced he hadn’t forgiven ‘Paperinik’ for the st.paddy’s day prank.</p><p>They weren’t the only one’s praising him either, almost overnight the entire city (save for a few sticklers) had changed their tune regarding Paperinik and showed their support for his actions. Some even calling him ‘duckburg’s first superhero.’ or ‘the duck avenger’</p><p>Sticking it to the man with pranks and gags was one thing, but saving lives? Stopping criminals? That was a whole different ball game and Donald absolutely loved the feeling it gave him. He felt like he had really made a difference that day, like he had truly contributed to something greater than himself. Not only that, he had proven to himself that he could be a superhero. Sure he had run in with no plan at all and had his family backing him up, but there was no doubt he had spearheaded that brawl and came out victorious; if he could do that on the fly, think of what he could do if he actually became a serious superhero just like Lord Quakette was. He could really do great things for this city and help people, he just had to try.</p><p>On that day, Donald Duck the superhero went from being a nice idea to a reality and thus began his career as the new Paperinik, otherwise known as the duck avenger.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“U-Uncle Donald was PAPERINIK?!” Exclaimed Huey in disbelief. “THE PAPERINIK?!”</p><p>“Uh, yeah? That’s what it says on the page.” Louie replied, before turning to Webby in confusion. “Who is Paperinik by the way?!”</p><p>Webby snapped out of her trance, just as shocked as Huey was. “Are you kidding me? Paperinik was the greatest superhero in Duckburg history! He fought off aliens, time travelers, and evil scientists single handedly! I can’t believe he was Donald Duck this whole time! I mean he was one of my prime candidates for the possible identity of Paperinik but still!</p><p>Dewey threw up his arms and let out a cheer. “I can’t believe I’m actually related to the duck avenger! This is amazing! I’ve got the blood of a superhero in my veins!”</p><p>Their celebration was cut short by the sound of approaching footsteps, followed by Ms.Beakley calling them down for lunch.</p><p>Knowing that Donald kept this hidden from his family for a reason, the kids did the only logical thing they could: hide it inside of Louie’s hoodie to read it for later and not tell any of the adults about it, ESPECIALLY not Donald.</p><p>As they left, the kids started to wonder just how well they really knew their uncle and how many secrets he stowed away in that journal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>please note that I'm not going to be sticking directly to the canon of all of the stories, I will be taking a few artistic liberties to ensure all the events fit together but I will be trying to stick to the original stories as much as I can.</p><p>I will say that the 2017 Ducktales timeline will trump all however, meaning no Daisy Duck at any point during this story. Sorry guys.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Paperinik, the new adventures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The kids dive further into the adventures of Paperinik<br/>Discovering the many friends and allies he made along the way, including a certain friendly Artifical intelligence program.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Donald smiled as he tucked the kids into bed, it had been a long day of adventuring for all of them: they had fought robot ninja pirates, played chess with the ghost of edgar allen crow, and even had to deal with webby being transformed into a fifty foot tall lizard reminiscent of the monster movies he so loved as a kid. Exciting as it was, it was also completely exhausting and he was happy to simply collapse in his hammock on the houseboat. But he kept his favorite place in the whole wide world waiting for the sake of his boys, as much as they claimed they were too old for their uncle to tuck them in anymore Donald knew deep down that they really appreciated him doing so.</p><p>“Goodnight boys, sweet dreams and all that.” Said the elder duck, kissing each of his adopted sons on the forehead as he climbed down their triple decker bunk bed.</p><p>“Good night uncle Donald.” replied each of the triplets with varying enthusiasm.</p><p>Donald walked out of the room with a grin on his face, flicking off the light switch as he closed the door behind him.</p><p>Little did he know, none of the triplets were planning on getting any sleep tonight. They were much too excited over their real plans.</p><p>Crawling over to the edge of his bed, Huey pulled out a small walkie talkie that he had kept hidden under the mattress for the purpose of this plan; rule 46 of the junior woodchucks, when making a plan ensure you have all the necessary equipment to carry it out.</p><p>“This is red leader to pink death, pink death do you copy?” Said the eldest of the triplets.</p><p>The walkie talkie crackled to life as an eager female voice came out from the other end. “This is pink death, I read you loud and clear. Are blue sky and greenbacks awake?”</p><p>“Yes!” the two other boys shouted, only to be shushed by their brother.</p><p>“Keep it down! Do you want Donald to come back and catch us?” Huey loudly whispered.</p><p>Dewey and Louie shook their heads. Nodding in reply Huey turned back to the handheld radio communicator. “Papa bear has left the building, I repeat, papa bear has left the building. We are go for operation storytime.”</p><p>Webby squealed from the other end. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Over and out.”</p><p>“You know that phrase actually doesn’t make sense, right? Over means you expect a reply and out means you don’t.” As expected Huey merely got silence from the other end.</p><p>That silence did not last long as the vent cover in the far corner of the room was moved away to reveal Webby crawling through the vents with Donald’s journal clutched in her arms.</p><p>They wanted to start reading through it more immediately after lunch but then Scrooge, Donald and Della woke back up, Launchpad came back from St. Canard, and with everyone lurking around they couldn’t crack open the book without getting caught. It may have been somewhat questionable to keep this a secret from everyone, but this was Donald’s secret too and they needed to keep it safe; even if that meant they violated that privacy themselves to satiate their own curiosity.</p><p>In order to do so, they came up with a plan: every night they would all gather in secret and stay up for a few hours getting through a few more sections of the journal, learning more about uncle Donald’s past; then they would return the book to Webby’s room for safekeeping during the day, honestly her room was probably the safest place to hide it, nobody would think to look there; wash, rinse, and repeat the next night. As long as they got enough actual sleep to keep up with their weekly adventures and didn’t act guilty, they’d be fine.</p><p>This brings us back to the here and now, with all the kids sitting in a circle around the journal, ready to learn more about their uncle’s mysterious past with a flashlight serving as the only illumination in the room.</p><p>“Alright, now where were we?” asked Huey as he started flipping through the pages. “Ah, here we go: it was one year since I had become a hero…..”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>It had been roughly one year since Donald Duck had taken up the mantle of Paperinik and become Duckburg’s resident hero, during that time his career had been reminiscent of something straight out of a comic book.</p><p>His first few patrols were rocky, he was inexperienced after all, he got caught on the wrong end of a fight more than once and got his butt kicked by a few of the tougher Beagle Boys gangs fairly frequently.</p><p>But with every failure, with every beating and bruise, he learned and got stronger. Eventually he started winning fights he got in, taking on bigger and tougher opponents, rising up from some kid with a dream to a true hero that fought for the innocent on the streets of Duckburg.</p><p>Unfortunately his reputation as an avenger in the night brough unwanted attention with it, when he started it was only a few muggers and bank robbers with the occasional crime lord trying to muscle into the city; the Beagle Boys and their ma tended to make up the majority of these encounters. But then supervillains started showing up, villains like the Phantom Blot who decided to make his big debut by kidnapping and ransoming uncle Scrooge; Baron Boom who tried to turn down town duckburg into rubble on a biweekly basis; or Captain Polka Dots...yeah Donald couldn’t really explain that one…</p><p>And that was before St. Canard decided it was a good idea to start importing super villains of their own: Megavolt, Bushroot, Quackerjack, and the Liquidator to name a few. To Donald, they were nothing more than extra headaches to deal with; too bad St.Canard doesn’t have it’s own hero to deal with these creeps instead of him. Donald will admit, he may have ‘borrowed’ a few gadgets and gizmos that Scrooge had come across on his adventures to deal with these new threats such as a grappling hook and magnetic boot soles but they were for a good cause!</p><p>That’s how his nights were spent, patrolling the city for criminals, stopping the plots of various supervillains, and taking short power naps whenever he could so he didn’t pass out from a lack of sleep.</p><p>Speaking of patrolling, Donald looked down from his spot on the roof to see a trio of the Beagle Boys were relieving a jewelry store of it’s wares. Bouncer, Big time, and Burger beagle if their outfits were anything to go off of; which they usually were since most of the Beagle Boys were virtually identical in terms of appearance, set apart only by their clothes.</p><p>‘Alright, showtime.’ Donald thought to himself as he soared into the alleyway.</p><p>Meanwhile the three beagles were laughing to themselves….well Bouncer and Big Time were, Burger seemed to be quaking in his boots.</p><p>“EY! Burger, something wrong? You usually love pulling jewel jobs like this.” Shouted Big Time.</p><p>The only response he got was the Beagle Boy muttering under his breath and his eyes continuously darting towards the rooftops. Big time could only roll his eyes.</p><p>“Oh for the love of- don’t tell me you’re worried about that Duck Avenger guy!”</p><p>Burger nodded in reply, his head still nervously darting around, trying to catch a glimpse of the aforementioned superhero.</p><p>Big Time ran a hand down his face. “He’s just some kid in a costume Burger! Not the boogeyman! And just because he beat us up on every job we’ve tried to pull for the past year doesn’t mean he’ll get us on this one! We’ve been extra careful not to draw any attention, Bouncer even learned how to disable silent alarms so we wouldn’t tip the Duck Avenger off. Right Bouncer?”</p><p>Bouncer didn’t say anything, in fact he didn’t even grunt in reply.</p><p>“Bouncer?” Big time repeated, turning around to face his brother only to discover he had up and vanished. The only evidence that he was there at all was the box of stolen goods spilled all over the ground.</p><p>Burger yelped and moved to run, only to have the scruff of his shirt grabbed by Big Time. “where do you think you’re going?! Ma’s counting on us to finish this job! I ain’t gonna disappoint her again!”</p><p>“B-but Bouncer-”</p><p>“He probably just left to use the bathroom or something, don’t worry about it.” the leader of the trio. “Just help me finish loading all of these boxes into the truck!”</p><p>Big Time walked over to the spilled loot and scooped it back into the box, turning around to hand it off to Burger; only to find that he had similarly disappeared as well, leaving only his hat behind.</p><p>“What the- I told you not to run off Burger!” Shouted Big Time, right before he felt a woosh of air behind him.</p><p>Spinning on his heel, the Beagle Boy found nothing but an empty alleyway.</p><p>Big Time began to sweat. “A-alright guys, very funny. You can come out now.”</p><p>A clatter of trash cans drew his attention to the buildings on the right, but there was nothing there but a few turned over garbage pails.</p><p>“W-who’s there?! S-show yourself!” Big Time stuttered out, his fists raised to face the unseen opponent.</p><p>He then bumped into something firm and turned around to come face to face with the Duck Avenger.</p><p>“Boo.”</p><p>Big Time let out a decidedly girlish scream before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fainted dead away.</p><p>Donald chuckled. “Man I love doing that.”</p><p>The vigilante picked up the smallest of the trio and placed him with his brothers, bound and gagged behind some nearby dumpsters. It had been tricky to take them down so quickly, but luckily he had the element of surprise and the shroud of shadows to aid him, and it was worth it to see Big Time freak out like that.</p><p>Hearing the police sirens approaching, no doubt coming to investigate the silent alarm that Donald had reactivated and then tripped, the duck avenger decided to make himself scarce and grapple up to the rooftops. Smiling in satisfaction when he saw the bewildered police officers discover his handiwork.</p><p>The relationship he had with the general public was...complicated to say the least. Many praised his actions and some even worshipped him for his heroics. (Della had even started up a ‘Duck Avenger fan club’ that already had over a hundred members and was growing by the day) of course that wasn’t always a good thing, more than once some over enthusiastic fan decided to slap on a cape and mask to try and imitate the Duck Avenger’s exploits, only to find themselves in over their heads and needing their hero to come to their rescue. Donald shut down those wannabes as soon as possible, he appreciated the sentiment but the last thing he needed was some poor kid getting dropped in acid because they wanted to be like him. The burden of being Duckburg’s hero was his alone to bear.</p><p>On the other hand, there were plenty of people who thought he was nothing short of a public menace, that he was only bringing in more criminals to Duckburg with his antics, that he was spitting in the face of the law by acting so far outside of it. One millionaire even tried to get a task force put together to bring Paperinik down, only to have said task force humiliated in what will be forever known as the hot fudge sundae incident and the man who hired them was exposed for serious counts of embezzlement and money laundering. Donald just ignored those people, it didn’t matter what they said about him, Donald knew that he was doing the right thing and saving lives and if people thought he was going about it the wrong way then that was too bad for them; the Duck Avenger was here to stay.</p><p>The police by far were the most split on their opinions of him. Half considered him a dangerous vigilante that needed to be brought to justice while the other half saw him as a benevolent protector who watched over the city, he was pretty sure he saw a Paperinik sticker on the back of a few of their patrol cars on occasion. He knew he did have at least one known ally in the form of a rookie cop by the name of Gloria Cabrera with a fire of determination in her that he knew all too well, who frequently slipped him information regarding from the precinct on the various criminal activities around town. Donald could tell that Gloria was certainly going places in the force if her skills were anything to go by.</p><p>Donald pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind for the time being, he needed to focus on his patrol for the night. It was a big city to cover and the villains weren’t going to foil themselves after all, except for that time Glomgold literally foiled his own plan but that hardly counted.</p><p>The duck proceeded to leap from rooftop to rooftop, keeping a watchful eye on the streets below for criminals and civilians in peril.</p><p>This had to be his second favorite part of being Paperinik, the first was obviously the grateful look of the people he saved, running along the roofs of Duckburg and soaring above the city streets while the rest of the city went about their business completely unaware of his presence. The silence broken only by the sound of his footfalls against the rooftops combined with the sparkling lights of the city that could only be truly appreciated from the vantage point he currently held. It gave him a sense of calm and peace that he couldn’t get anywhere else and really allowed him to reflect on himself; at home it was the exact opposite, the sounds of life in duck manor were almost deafening to him. Don’t get him wrong, he loved his family more than anything else in the world but even he needed a break once in a while.</p><p>The scream cutting through the air broke him away from this calm as he let out a short sigh.</p><p>“Well it was nice while it lasted.” Donald remarked as he dashed in the direction of the distressed cry.</p><p>He was expecting a recent mugging by some masked thugs or some other earthly threat. What he got instead was these two strange ducks with blue bills, black shirts, and what looked like a blue cloud of smoke emanating from their heads; currently the two were standing beside a crashed luxury car with-</p><p>‘Holy moley! Is that Saxony Starbright?! The movie star?!’ Donald internally monologued. ‘I loved her in Pasta-nado! Wait. FOCUS DONALD!’</p><p>The Duck Avenger dropped down to street level just as the strange monsters were roughly pulling Ms.Starbright from her car. “Hey! That’s no way to treat a lady!”</p><p>The larger of the two monsters whipped his head around to face the vigilante and almost immediately fired a ray of blue fire from one of his hands, Donald’s quick reflexes barely allowing him to dodge the attack.</p><p>“Aw man! He singed my cape.” Donald complained before closing the distance and clocking the duck across the face, sending him sprawling to the ground.</p><p>The shorter of the two then made his move, leaping onto the duck’s back in an attempt to choke him out only to be grabbed and thrown over Donald’s head into some trash cans.</p><p>The Duck Avenger then let out a yelp when another jet of fire narrowly missed his beak, looking over he saw that the larger monster had recovered from his earlier blow and was attempting to serve up some roast duck.</p><p>Pulling out some his cherry bombs and sparking them up, Donald lobbed the handful of fireworks at his foe. Only to become shocked when the beast materialized a shield out of seemingly nowhere and outright blocked the attack, reading up another blast of blue fire. The rapidly approaching footsteps let him know that his other foe was quickly coming up behind him, he didn’t have a lot of time left to react.</p><p>It was a good thing Donald had gotten quite good at thinking on his feet.</p><p>Pausing for a moment to allow the opportunity to present itself, Donald dove to the side right as the short beast jumped. This caused him to fly right into his friend’s attack and while it did hurt, it was far from being enough to slow the shorter creature’s momentum who promptly collided face first with the larger of the two, sending both to the ground in a dazed heap.</p><p>“There we go. Done and done.” the Duck Avenger remarked, dusting off his hands.</p><p>Before he could turn to tend to Ms.Starbright and ensure she was okay, a blur of silver and purple darted in front of him and scooped up the two defeated monsters. As it left, Donald caught the glimpse of an even stranger looking creature in a purple suit riding a hoverboard with the two terrified beasts clinging to the sides as it disappeared in the night sky.</p><p>Hearing the sound of approaching police sirens, no doubt altered by concerned civilians who witnessed the brawl, Donald decided to follow suit.</p><p>“Have a good night Saxony Starbright, be safe.” Donald said before shooting his grappling hook onto a nearby rooftop and lifted himself out of sight.</p><p>As he snuck away from the scene Donald couldn’t help but wonder what the heck those things were. He had seen plenty of monsters and maniacs on his travels with Scrooge and had heard of just as many more from his tales, but he had never seen the likes of those creatures nor has he ever even heard of them in his life.</p><p>No doubt about it, something was afoot in Duckburg and the Duck Avenger was going to drag it kicking and screaming into the light.</p><p>The beeping of his watch made Donald realize that he had been out far longer than he had anticipated tonight and was likely going to get home late...again. He had better get back to the mansion before somebody noticed that he had been missing, the last thing he needed was someone as smart as Scrooge asking questions about where he had been.</p><p>‘I’ll have to save this case for tomorrow, get up bright and early to do some detective work and maybe find out who or what that creature was’ Donald internally monologued as he swung over the streets of duckburg in the direction of McDuck manor.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>“It is way too early in the morning for this.” Donald grumbled, a complaint that went unnoticed by Scrooge.</p><p>Almost as soon as the sun rose, Scrooge burst into Donald’s room with a great fanfare and dragged him out of his very comfy bed. The old billionaire mentioned something about how he had an amazing opportunity for him that he needed to see right this second, giving Donald only moments to grab a few doughnuts on the way out of the mansion. In other words, it was the very last situation he needed to be in after a long night of crime fighting.</p><p>After a quick drive through the streets, the limo pulled up to the curb of one of the city blocks and Donald was unceremoniously dragged out of the car by his uncle.</p><p>“Check out my new property lad! Isn’t it grand?!” Scrooge said motioning to his side where a fire hydrant stood</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “You pulled me out of bed and dragged me all the way downtown to show me a fire hydrant?”</p><p>“What? No!” Sputtered Scrooge. “Look over there ya thimble headed gherkin!”</p><p>Donald followed Scrooge’s hand and gasped at the sight he beheld.</p><p>In front of him stood an utterly massive sky-scraper with a purple coloring, it’s sheer size dwarfing every other building in Duckburg including Scrooge’s money bin. If that wasn’t enough the whole place looked far more advanced than it had any business being, like it had been plucked out of a sci-fi movie and plopped right in the middle of duckburg.</p><p>“This skyscraper is yours Uncle Scrooge?” Donald said, still gaping at the holding.</p><p>The billionaire nodded. “I give you, Everett Ducklair tower! Formerly belonging to the multi-millionaire Everett Ducklair before he mysteriously vanished!”</p><p>“Vanished?”</p><p>“Yes. Vanished without a trace, quite abruptly I might add. Nobody knows where in the world he went.” Explained Scrooge. “He was an old friend of mine and I’ll miss him dearly...but his disappearance is my gain!”</p><p>Donald could only roll his eyes as he was led into the building, typical Scrooge.</p><p>As they entered, Donald was shocked to see that the interior was somehow even MORE high tech than the exterior. The entire place was a crisp chrome color, to the point where Donald could actually see his reflection on the well polished floor; strange pods and tubes lined the walls with dozens of buttons and switches upon them. It felt like walking into a spaceship.</p><p>“Wow, this place must have been expensive to get.” Donald gawked.</p><p>Scrooge merely chuckled. “Not at all lad. In fact I’d say I made out like a bandit on this building.”</p><p>“Really? How?”</p><p>“Simple. Nobody else wanted the place.”</p><p>Scrooge pulled a switch on the wall and immediately several of the pods opened up to reveal strange looking sensors.</p><p>“Ya see, Ducklair tower is packed to the brim with cables, cybernetic devices, and sensors. Nobody knows what they do!”</p><p>Donald gulped. “Not even the engineers?”</p><p>“Not. Even. Them. These are all Ducklair’s designs and no one has ever seen the finished plans.”</p><p>“And you decided to buy this, why?” Asked Donald with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“Because I know a business opportunity when I see one lad. With this much unoccupied space, I’ll make ten times the amount I spent renting out the floors. It will take me some time to find proper tenants of course, in the meantime the tower will need a caretaker.”</p><p>Donald audibly sighed, he could already see where the billionaire was going with this one. In fact he was getting a weird sense of deja vu, rich millionaire duck disappears, leaving behind an old building with secrets untold, one that his uncle purchased for one of his business ventures and now expected Donald to fix; almost the same situation had happened to him exactly one year ago.</p><p>“So Donald what do-”</p><p>“Fine.” Donald flatly replied.</p><p>Scrooge blinked. “Really? You’re just gonna-”</p><p>“Scrooge, we both know that if I refuse you’re just going to end up guilt tripping me with all the things you’ve done for me over the years and force me to agree. It’s easier to just say yes now and save myself the trouble.”</p><p>Scrooge pursed his lips, he’d be a bit more upset at that accusation if it wasn’t so accurate. So instead he merely shrugged and led his nephew out of the building. “Well in that case, Duckworth and I will gather your things so you can get settled in. While we’re gone, ya might want to take a tour through the place, get yerself familiarized with all one-hundred and fifty floors!”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. I’ll master them all.” Donald muttered as Scrooge’s car pulled away.</p><p>Turning back around to face ducklair tower, a thought came to Donald’s mind.</p><p>“Hmm, a hundred and fifty huh? Are there really that many floors?” Donald asked himself before he began to count each individual one.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>The first time he went through the count, he swore he was off and counted the floors twice more to be absolutely sure he hadn’t miscounted. But each time Donald came up with the same number: one hundred and fifty ONE.</p><p>The land registry miscounted, there was an extra floor right on top of the building. A normal person might shrug this off as a mere clerical error, but Donald was far from normal and a year of being a superhero gave him reasonable suspicions about this sort of thing.</p><p>Suspicions that seemed to be somewhat grounded as the extra floor was not only missing from all of the building’s directories, not only did he fail to find any form of entrances to that mystery floor, but the elevator seemed to take longer to go between the 149th and the 150th floors than any other in the entire building; there was no doubt about it, Ducklair had hidden something between those two floors and the Duck Avenger was going to find out what it was.</p><p>After sneaking into the mansion to collect his gear which he had hidden in his closet in a box marked “Donald’s lint collection.” (he figured that would have kept any prying eyes away with the boring subject), Donald made his way to the roof of Ducklair Tower.</p><p>“Okay, if I just hook the rope up here I should be able to rappel down to this secret floor and see what’s inside.” Donald said, giving said rope a few experimental tugs.</p><p>Before he could take a single step, he felt a drop of water land on his beak and looked up just in time to see a torrent of rain start to pour down upon him. Prompting a groan to come out of the young vigilante.</p><p>“Of course, that figures. Well it’s a good thing I nabbed these waterproof sticky soles from the money bin’s lab.”</p><p>Donald quickly shimmied his way down until he was level with where he assumed the mystery floor to be, only to discover that all of the windows were actually one way mirrors and when he tried to use his avenger analyzer (again, pilfered from the rejects pile of the money bin’s labs) it couldn’t detect anything inside. At this point he was completely and utterly convinced there was some terrible secret being concealed.</p><p>Rounding the building a few more times, Donald grew frustrated; there were no entrances, no way to break inside, and he was getting utterly soaked.</p><p>“Oh forget it, I’ll just find shelter until the storm passes and keep investigating later. That gargoyle looks inviting.” The vigilante remarked as he hopped into the mouth of the stone structure.</p><p>To his complete and utter surprise, the statue’s mouth clamped shut around Donald and he felt himself going down a chute that promptly spat him right out into the secret floor he had spent the last hour attempting to gain access to.</p><p>Unfortunately, Donald wasn’t able to celebrate his victory as the secret entrance ended up spitting him out head first onto the floor and he was nursing a wicked bump as a result of it.</p><p>“Ouchie. That really hurt…” Donald groaned.</p><p>
  <b>“INTRUDER! WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE?!”</b>
</p><p>Donald yelped and turned around to face what he expected to be an angry security guard only to discover that he seemed to be alone in the room. The only presence was a strange looking computer console that seemed to be hooked up to the entire floor.</p><p>“What the- Who said that?”</p><p>A bright green orb suddenly lit up in the center console, creating the visage of a green duck head that seemed eerily familiar to that wizard from Della’s favorite childhood movie.</p><p><b>“I did.”</b> said the duck in the green orb. <b>“I am ONE, the Artificial intelligence controlling Ducklair tower. Now identify yourself at once!”</b></p><p>An AI program? That was a new one…</p><p>“I’m Paperinik, also known as the Duck Avenger.” Donald replied with pride. “Duckburg’s resident superhero. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”</p><p>The AI seemed to frown. <b>“I’m sorry, but I can’t say I’m familiar with your line of work.”</b></p><p>Donald’s jaw dropped for a moment, he was a local legend that frequently made the front page of the newspapers in Duckburg. How has this pile of scrap not heard of him?!</p><p>Before Donald could speak his mind, a chair popped out from beneath him forced him into a sitting position in front of ONE.</p><p>
  <b>“However, you do not appear to be a threat to Ducklair Tower. I suppose a few explanations are in order, you probably have a lot of questions after all.”</b>
</p><p>“Of course I do!” Donald exclaimed. “Who made you? Why are you here? Do you know what happened to Everett Ducklair?”</p><p>
  <b>“It’s a long and complicated story my friend. You see, my origins began when my creator, Everett Ducklair, built me so that he would have an intellectual companion to speak to…”</b>
</p><p>Donald was quickly accosted into the tale of Everett Ducklair: the man was an utter genius, whose inventions made him a millionaire in no time flat. Unfortunately for him, his creative genius caused a nasty habit of him accidentally creating powerful weapons of destruction over and over again despite the fact that he wanted to bring peace to the world rather than drag it into war. Seeing no other option, the inventor sold all of his worldly possessions and departed for a monastery hidden deep in the Himalayas in an attempt to find a better part of himself buried beneath his mad genius.</p><p><b>“Ever since then I have kept watch over Ducklair tower, waiting for my creator to return home.”</b> ONE explained, finishing his tale.</p><p>“Well that answers one question I suppose.” Donald remarked.</p><p>
  <b>“Now then, Paperinik. Seeing as I have satisfied your curiosity, how about satisfying mine? How did you gain access to this floor, I thought it to be impenetrable?”</b>
</p><p>Donald shrugged. “I have no idea, after my uncle made me the caretaker of this sky-scraper I got a little curious about this mystery floor and-”</p><p><b>“Of course! That’s it!”</b> ONE exclaimed.</p><p>Donald stared at the AI program in slight confusion. “What’s it?”</p><p>
  <b>“My subroutines must have registered the transfer of ownership, thus granting you access to my floor!”</b>
</p><p>“That makes sense.”</p><p><b>“Well seeing as you are here now and have been fully informed of the situation. Perhaps you can use an ally?”</b> Asked ONE. <b>“if you really are a hero like you say you are, you may benefit from my assistance. Plus I would love to learn more about your activities as ‘the Duck Avenger’”</b></p><p>At first Donald was a bit hesitant to accept the computer’s help, a sentient AI program was a lot to take in even for someone who had gone on as many adventures with his family as Donald did and he had seen plenty of sci-fi movies about the drawbacks of artificial intelligence. Then again ONE did seem a tad on the lonely side, being constricted to an empty building for so long could do that to anybody, not to mention having an AI buddy could open up all sorts of new windows for Donald’s crime fighting abilities.</p><p>Seeing that the benefits outweighed any possible drawback that could occur from befriending ONE, Donald decided to accept his offer.</p><p>“Sure, I could always use more friends anyways.” The superhero replied with a smile. “Oh and by the way, just call me Donald.”</p><p>
  <b>“Very well Donald, I think this is going to be the beginning of a wonderful partnership. Now then…..”</b>
</p><p>Donald saw a wall next to him suddenly slide up, revealing a large cache of gadgets and gizmos.</p><p>
  <b>“Let’s talk about upgrading your arsenal, shall we?”</b>
</p><p>Donald had to physically restrain himself from letting out a fangirlish squeal at the sight.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>“An AI sidekick? Incredible.” Huey remarked. “I would have thought that kind of technology wouldn’t have been developed for years!”</p><p>“It does explain where Don- I mean Paperinik got all of his gadgets from.” added Webby before a thought seemingly occurred to her. “Hey, Ducklair tower is still standing downtown. Do you think ONE is still in there after all these years?”</p><p>“Maybe uncle Donald said what happened to him in his journal.” Louie suggested. “Speaking of, can we get back to the part where he’s an amazing superhero?”</p><p>“Agreed. I want to hear about how much butt he kicked!” Exclaimed Dewey, doing a few mock martial arts moves for emphasis.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>Things got very, very complicated after that night in Ducklair tower.</p><p>Turns out that Donald met ONE at just the right moment because he came in contact with a brand new threat that was tougher than anything he had faced in the past: the Evronians.</p><p>They were essentially emotion vampires from another world that drained all of a person’s emotions into themselves for sustenance, leaving their victims as mindless slaves called ‘Coolflames’. Which were the monsters he had encountered the night before he had met ONE. These aliens were no common thug or costumed supervillain, they were faster and stronger than earthly criminals but thankfully not smarter. In any case, their plans for world domination and enslavement of all of earth’s people was something Paperinik could not abide by and was forced time and time again to battle the creatures for the safety of earth. Thankfully ONE’s upgrades to his arsenal, trading in cherry bombs for concussion grenades, a taser for a stun blaster, and a grappling hook for his trusty x-transformer shield, made it far easier to do battle with the hostile invaders not to mention it turned most of his former rogues gallery into total pushovers who were helpless against his new tech.</p><p>But of course strength invites challenge and his new abilities and increasing fame drew in bigger and badder villains.</p><p>Villains like the Red Raider, a time traveling pirate (yes you read that correctly) from the twenty-third century who sought to pillage and plunder the timestream; sometimes for his own personal gain and sometimes under orders from a criminal organization. In any case, he was purely in it for the money alone. He started off as a foe to Paperinik but as the two clashed, they slowly but surely came to understand one another and developed a mutual respect between them. Red Raider may have been a thief, but he was an honorable thief who was not above working with the Duck Avenger when the situation required it; it was quite possibly the weirdest friendship Donald had ever experienced.</p><p>There was also TWO, ONE’s evil twin who was far more malevolent than his ‘brother’ and wanted to conquer both the real and virtual worlds. Donald had nearly destroyed ONE during his first encounter with TWO but his AI buddy survived and managed to beat back the rogue program. It didn’t stop the maniacal intelligence from returning now and then to threaten Duckburg.</p><p>However Donald wasn’t just making enemies as Paperinik, his heroics landed him his fair share of friends, powerful friends that would gladly fight by his side for the greater good.</p><p>Friends like Xadhoom, a scientist from the planet Xerba with the powers of a supernova at her disposal and just as much reason to hate the Evronians as Donald did seeing as they successfully conquered her people. Their first encounter was hostile and their second had her barely tolerating him due to their shared goals, but with every battle against the emotion vampires they grew closer and Xadhoom eventually came to regard Donald as a friend who she could count on to have her back in a time of need.</p><p>Friends like Lyla Lay, a journalist working for the double-zero news alongside Paperinik’s ‘number one fan’ Angus Fangus, a fellow journalist who had it out for the avenger for one reason or another. Luckily Lyla did not share her coworker’s negative opinion of the Paperinik and saw him as a hero, however it wasn’t until she was revealed as an android from the twenty-third century sent back to protect the time stream that she truly became an ally of Paperinik. Aiding him in any time travel related villainy and frequently finding herself at odds with her superiors who wanted to maintain history for better or for worse; but no matter what, she always seemed to side with this time period’s hero rather than the time police.</p><p>Friends like Urk, the Iroquois warrior from another dimension. Despite his hulking appearance, the massive Duck proved to be quite friendly if a bit clueless to the customs of this dimension. After hunting down a time beast that has plagued his people for centuries, Urk and Paperinik became fast friends who fought side by side as fellow warriors for the good. The dimension hopper’s incredible strength proved invaluable in many conflicts against the various monsters and baddies that showed up on the streets of duckburg.</p><p>And of course Scrooge and Della Duck, how could he ever forget about them. They never quite put it together that Donald and Paperinik were one and the same, a fact that the aforementioned duck was quite amused by; being able to pull one over old scrooge mcduck for over a year and operating right under his nose. From time to time the duo dragged Donald on their usual adventures, but they also called upon the Duck Avenger for assistance on some of their escapades; Scrooge claimed that it was because of Paperinik’s unique skill set, but Donald knew that the real reason is because Della had begged Scrooge for the opportunity to work alongside her favorite superhero.</p><p>Donald even got to meet Everette ducklair on one occasion, the reclusive inventor stopping by to check up on his friend ONE. He greatly approved of the job Paperinik was doing and even gave him access to some of the underground floors at ducklair tower along with a heaping helping of respect.</p><p>All in all it made for a great life, Donald was a superhero that saved the world on a daily basis with a colorful cast of friends and allies ready to fight by his side and while he wasn’t always praised for his actions, the satisfaction of knowing he made the world a better place was reward enough. He was no longer a screw up, he wasn’t the bumbling buffoon, he was Paperinik, Duckburg’s feathery knight and sworn guardian and he was happy.</p><p>Then one day, in typical Donald Duck fashion....he screwed it all up.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>Huey slammed the book closed out of nowhere.</p><p>“Woah! You can’t just leave us on a cliff-” Dewey was silenced by his older brother slapping a hand over his beak and motioning for him to be quiet.</p><p>That’s when they heard it, the sound of approaching foot steps. The heavy thumps made it obvious that it was Ms.Beakley, coming to check up on the children.</p><p>Moving quickly, Webby snatched up the book and darted for the vent. The girl swiftly, but quietly, closing the grate behind her. Meanwhile Huey, Dewey, and Louie scrambled for their respective bunks and quickly pretended to still be asleep like they had practiced earlier for this specific occasion.</p><p>The slow creaking of the door opening and closing after a few minutes of pause gave the triplets a feeling of relief, they had gotten away completely clean.</p><p>Unfortunately, because of the last entry they had read, it was unlikely that any of them were going to sleep well that night. For all three of them couldn’t help but wonder what Donald had done to ruin his career as Paperinik and bring an end to the hero...</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>as you can see, I've done my research.</p><p>But bad times are approaching</p><p>(*edit* huge thanks to loreto-arts for doing the piece above for the paperinik art, you can find more of his stuff here: https://www.deviantart.com/loreto-arts)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Stress and Trauma</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I'm just going to warn you all right now. This chapter gets pretty dark, like PTSD and minor character death dark.<br/>I needed to give Donald a reason to give up the superhero life and what better way than for the stress of it to start pushing him over the edge</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Aaand there! Done!” Huey said with a smile, admiring his handiwork before turning around “I got the tent all ready!”</p><p>The Duck family was deep in the mountains of New Zealand, apparently Scrooge had caught wind of a legend about an immortal Maori warrior by the name of Haka living in the forests of the island; acting as a keeper for an ancient library containing treasures and secrets from his long lost tribe.</p><p>Naturally Scrooge couldn’t resist the challenge and dragged everyone along on the search for this mystical, timeless figure.</p><p>Unfortunately the search had dragged on far longer than anticipated. This was partly because Launchpad had crashed right on the eastern coast of New Zealand, several dozen miles outside of the area they were supposed to be searching and Scrooge was much too cheap to rent a jeep forcing them to proceed on foot.</p><p>By the time they actually reached their destination, the sun had already begun to set on the horizon. Seeing as they couldn’t properly conduct the search for Haka in the darkness, the group decided to set up camp and resume the hunt in the morning. Thankfully they had the foresight to bring a few tents along for the trip for this specific situation.</p><p>“Alright then, Donald, Della, and I will take this tent. You kids can sleep in the other.” said Scrooge as he stomped out their campfire. “I expect all of you to be up bright and early tomorrow morning. That Maori warrior isn’t gonna reveal himself.”</p><p>“Yes uncle scrooge!” Replied the quartet in near perfect unison.</p><p>As they all crawled into their respective tents however, Webby pulled out a very familiar journal out of her pack. Much to the shock of the triplets.</p><p>“What the- You brought that along?!” Exclaimed Louie.</p><p>“Of course I did-”</p><p>“Webby! What if Uncle Donald or mom found that in your bag?!” Dewey said, now peeking outside of the tent to make sure the coast was clear.</p><p>“I’m sorry! But I just had to know what happened next in the story of Paperinik! What could have possibly drove Donald away from being a superhero?!” Exclaimed the sole female member of the trio.</p><p>“So do the rest of us but it’s too risky to bring that along.” Huey said, snatching the book away from Webby. “Let’s just put it back in your bag for now.”</p><p>“Oh come on guys. Please?”</p><p>The eldest of the triplets stopped when he saw webby shooting him a look he knew all too well: the sad puppy look, a look that Louie had mastered back in kindergarten.</p><p>“No. Webby.” Said Dewey</p><p>“Pwease?” Webby repeated, her pupils getting even bigger.</p><p>The triplets’ resolve began to weaken “N-no webby.”</p><p>Tears began to shimmer out of the corner of Webby’s eyes “pwetty pwease with a-”</p><p>“ALRIGHT ENOUGH!” Louie said, ripping the book out of his brother’s hands and handing it back to Webby. “I hate that I taught you how to do that.”</p><p>Webby just gave a cheeky smile in return and opened the journal to it’s book marked page.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p>Donald Duck was having a REALLY bad day today.</p><p>Granted he had plenty of bad days, more than he knew what to do with; it was as if the universe had decided he’d make a great punching bag. He encountered more misfortune than anyone else on the face of the earth and nearly everyday he got into some kind of accident or was subjugated to a humiliating situation. But he was used to those kinds of days, they were part of his life and he simply learned to roll with the punches.</p><p>It was why he made for such a good hero, when the going got tough he got tougher.</p><p>This wasn’t his garden variety bad day however, today was a particularly bad day for him. Not the worst day he’s ever had, that honor belongs to the day after his seventh birthday and what he lost back then; but this day was certainly on the top ten.</p><p>It had started off so simple. He had celebrated his and Della’s eighteenth birthday a few days ago with his family, Scrooge congratulating them on their transition into adulthood and was still riding the high from the utterly epic soorie that Scrooge had thrown for them. Coupled with the fact that some of his superhero friends caught wind of this date and decided to throw him a surprise party at Ducklair tower that night and Donald was a fairly happy duck, granted that some of their cultural differences made for a strange party but he appreciated the efforts nonetheless.</p><p>Then HE showed up: Trauma, the evronian super soldier with a penchant for violence and orders to kill Paperinik at all costs. The alien literally fell out of the sky and quickly went about destroying the city.</p><p>The first thing Donald noticed was that his title of ‘super soldier’ was more than deserving, he was a massive being standing at nearly triple Donald’s height with huge muscles that bulged everytime he knocked down a building or tossed a car like it was a beach ball. Apart from his massive build granting him super strength and incredible durability, Trauma also had the ability to inflict...well, trauma.</p><p>Unlike the rest of Evronians who relied on draining their victims of emotions, Trauma relied on intensifying those emotions. More specifically the emotions of fear and dread, his psychic waves could reach into a person’s mind and force their absolute worst memories to the forefront, paralyzing them in fear before using their vulnerable state to turn them into a coolflame.</p><p>Donald had assumed that the big guy was all talk and would go down easy despite his size, boy was he wrong.</p><p>Donald had crashed a hovercar straight into the behemoth’s chest and it barely even left a scratch on him, the rest of his gadgets seemed to have the same result. In fact it almost seemed like Trauma was enjoying watching the little hero struggle, right before he nearly killed Donald with his psychic powers by dragging up a few memories of schoolyard bullies.</p><p>The vigilante knew he was outmatched and was forced to flee and recover back at Ducklair tower, all while watching helplessly as Trauma continued to destroy the city and the people cried out for their savior to come. It was all too much for Donald to take, he knew that another fight with Trauma would likely kill him but what choice did he have? That monster had to be stopped</p><p>Luckily ONE had a spare mech lying around and, while it was untested, it was more than enough to level the playing field between Paperinik and Trauma.</p><p>What followed next was akin to a clash of the titans: it didn’t take long for Donald to track down his foe, he wasn’t exactly making any efforts to hide, and once he found the enhanced evronian he started pummeling him to which Trauma returned the favor; the two fought their way across Duckburg, smashing through buildings and tearing up the streets in the process as their blows collided, the mech was taking heavy damage from the battle but so was Trauma and he clearly wasn’t used to fighting an opponent with equal strength as he soon began to falter, Paperinik driving him into a corner.</p><p>Too bad for Donald, the evronian was smarter than he looked. As the duck grappled him with the intention of pinning him down, Trauma ripped off the orb protecting the vigilante from his psychic beams and hit him with the full force of his powers and point blank range.</p><p>As he did so however, he seemed to spot something in Donald’s subconscious.</p><p>“Hello, what’s this? Looks like a nice juicy memory with a lot of fear attached to it, let’s take a look. Shall we?” Trauma said, letting his powers go to work.</p><p>Donald screamed as the psychic intrusion wormed it’s way into his mind, the pain ended up causing him to lose consciousness, the sound of Trauma’s evil laughter being the last thing he heard.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p>“Wait, did Uncle Donald die?!” Dewey said, shocked. “But he couldn’t have died, he’s right there in the tent next to ours!”</p><p>The blue triplet was shushed by the rest of the kids as Webby continued to read.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p>Donald woke back up with a start, his head hitting the back of the aged leather seat.</p><p>‘Wait, leather? There wasn’t a leather seat in the mech.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>The sound of poorly imitated plane noises drew his attention to his left where he saw a much younger version of his twin sister sitting in the seat next to him, playing with a toy plane that she was holding up against the car window and pretending it was flying.</p><p>Looking down at himself, Donald saw that he was now in his seven year old body complete with that old embarrassing sailor suit that his parents always made him wear.</p><p>‘Wait a second…’</p><p>Donald looked back up to see both his parents, looking very alive, arguing in the front seat about something or other, he couldn’t quite make it out.</p><p>His eyes sinking into the back of his head, Donald started looking at his surroundings and was horrified to see that they were driving down that horrible mountain road.</p><p>“No, no, not this again!” Donald almost shrieked as he desperately pulled at his seatbelt, trying to get himself free, but it wouldn’t budge.</p><p>He tried to scream for his parents to stop the car but either no sound came out of his mouth or they simply couldn’t hear him over the sound of their argument, which was distracting them from the road.</p><p>Donald knew this day all too well, the worst day of his and Della’s life, the day their world came crashing down around them.</p><p>He didn’t have much time to ponder how he was back here before the sound of screeching tires broke through the air and the car started swerving on the road, Quackmore trying to regain control of the steering wheel while Hortense started screaming alongside his sister; not that he could blame them, he was screaming too.</p><p>Then they busted through the barrier and went off the side of the mountain, their car rolling and tumbling all the way down, throwing the occupants around like ragdolls while they screamed in terror. Donald couldn’t feel the pain when his arm was stabbed with the glass from the shattered window or when Della’s body flew into his own, but he didn’t need to, he never forgot what that pain felt like.</p><p>The rest of the memory was a blur, Donald had taken so many hits in the fall that he was barely conscious at that point. All he could remember was him hanging upside down with his sister’s limp body below him, the fuzzy image of his parents’ sitting in the front seat was the last thing he saw before he blacked out again.</p><p>Then the memories started coming rapid fire, along with all the emotional pain attached to them: being pulled from the wreckage and rushed to the hospital, learning that his sister was in a coma while he got away with only a few mild lacerations, waiting for the doctor’s news about his parents as they tried to perform a life saving operation on them, and being the one to tell Della when she woke up a few days later to tell her that mom and dad didn’t survive the crash.</p><p>As he was dragged through this trip down memory lane, Donald felt something well up deep inside of him; something dangerous that he had buried long ago. When they were in the process of grieving their parents, both twins dealt with it in different ways: Della hid behind a smile, pretending everything was alright during the day and trying to be tough while crying against her pillow at night; Donald on the other hand did not hide his grief but turned it into anger at nearly everything, his parents for getting distracted while driving, himself for not being able to help them, and the world for taking them away. All of the rage and hatred boiled up inside of him and caused several destructive outbursts that Scrooge swiftly dealt with, he knew how to properly handle a raging child in the throes of grief.</p><p>But there was no Scrooge to calm him down now as those old feelings of anger came back, no Della to bring him back from the brink, nobody to keep him grounded as he felt his old rage consume him. Every negative emotion that he felt at that time came to a head within him and soon burst forth in a violent release.</p><p>Donald let out a primal scream and shattered the illusion, slingshotting himself back into reality much to Trauma’s shock.</p><p>“What the heck?! You shouldn’t be able to-” He never got to finish his sentence, as Donald landed a wild haymaker across the Evronian’s face, a sickening crack sounding off after the blow. The hero leapt on him shortly afterwards and savagely beat him, putting every ounce of fury he had into every blow.</p><p>“YOU LIKE TRAUMA?! I’LL SHOW YOU TRAUMA!” Screamed Donald has he beat the alien senseless.</p><p>Paperinik quickly lost himself in his rage. The sound of crumbling buildings around him, the desperate pleas for mercy from Trauma, the sickening crunch of bone and tear of flesh that came with every punch Donald landed, it was all nothing more than white noise to the hero as his mind had become focused on just one thing:</p><p>Making Trauma feel every ounce of pain that he did.</p><p>Donald just kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him, over and over again, never once yielding and letting out screams of vengeful fury all the while; even when Trauma stopped struggling altogether, body going limp, Donald continued his assault.</p><p>It wasn’t until the Duck Avenger began to tire out, his breaths becoming laborious, and his muscle becoming sore that he was able to take a step back and come to his senses. When his vision finally cleared from the haze of red, Donald became horrified at what he saw.</p><p>Trauma...was dead, body had been pummeled so hard that it had been reduced to nothing more than a red stain on the floor; his body lie twisted and mangled beneath the avenger’s feet.</p><p>“I-I...what have I done?” Donald stuttered out in fear, looking down at his gauntlets that were now coated in Trauma’s blood.</p><p>He was panicking now, he had just beaten someone to death with his own two hands. He couldn’t think straight, his instincts told him that he needed to get out of there right now and Donald decided to listen to them. Activating the mech’s jet boots, Donald flew away from the scene of the crime just in time to hear the shouts from below.<br/><b>“-ONALD! DONALD WHAT HAPPENED?!” </b></p><p>Wait...those shouts weren’t coming from below. With the added clarity he had gotten from his cleared mind, Donald realized that it was ONE shouting at him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p><b>“YOU WERE IN A TRANCE IN A FEW MOMENTS AND THEN WENT BALLISTIC! I TRIED TO GET YOUR ATTENTION BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN HEAR ME! WHAT DID TRAUMA DO TO YOU?!”</b> It was obvious ONE was freaking out about this whole affair just as much as Donald was.</p><p>“I-I’ll tell you when I get back to Ducklair tower.” Donald stuttered out. “It- it was something personal.”</p><p>As he flew away, the duck looked over his shoulder one last time at the crumbling building where Trauma’s corpse now lied, shuddering at the image.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p><b>“That’s what you saw...your parents?”</b> Asked ONE.</p><p>Donald nodded, chewing down another oatmeal raisin cookie.</p><p>When he arrived back at Ducklair tower, Donald ditched the mech suit and immediately collapsed on the floor. He crawled across the tiles for a few moments before taking in a deep breath….</p><p>….and calmly vomiting all over the floor.</p><p>Seeing his friend in trouble, ONE quickly placed Donald into the bed Everette used to use for his late nights in the lab and tucked the distrubed hero in where he quickly passed out; the AI’s mechanical heart nearly breaking at the way the eighteen year old shivered as he was moved, he looked so fragile now. It was hard to believe he had killed an Evronian super soldier less than an hour ago.</p><p>When Donald woke up again, it was clear his little nap had done almost nothing to calm his nerves as he still held that fearful look in his eyes and a pale complexion. Thankfully ONE knew the best way to deal with this: milk and cookies.</p><p>The artificial intelligence’s theory proved correct as the baked sugar and dairy seemed to have an extremely Calming effect on Donald, much more so than he expected. He would later learn that whenever Donald woke up from a nightmare as a kid, his mother would frequently bring him this exact snack to help him calm down.</p><p>One also learned exactly how the woman died, along with her husband, that memory was what triggered Donald’s berserker rage.</p><p>
  <b>“He made you relieve the memories of your parents dying?”</b>
</p><p>Donald nodded again. “It was the worst day of my entire life, I lost so much back then. I almost lost Della.”</p><p><b>“I’m so sorry.”</b> Said ONE. <b>“Are you going to be alright?”</b></p><p>“I don’t know.” Donald rasped. “I just need some time to think, rest up, maybe talk to my family.”</p><p>The AI nodded. <b>“Well if you ever need to talk, old cape, you know where to find me.”</b></p><p>Donald nodded, he just needed a few days off from being Paperinik and everything would be fine. He was sure of it</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p>This was NOT fine.</p><p>It had been a month since he had killed Trauma and things had only gone down hill for Donald since then. He had tried to shake it off, power through and move on but that day just kept coming back to haunt him.</p><p>And he wasn’t entirely sure what was worse: the fact that he had lost control of himself and killed as a result of it or the fact that he had to be reminded of that horrible day.</p><p>He supposed it didn’t really matter, both events kept replaying in the nightmares that woke him up screaming every single night for the past two weeks.</p><p>Which is why he had to be moved back into the manor; Della had invited him back home for a weekend sleepover and got a terrible fright when her twin brother woke her up with screams of terror, crying for his mom and dad. Both his uncle and sister insisted that he stay at Mcduck Manor for the foreseeable future to ensure that he’d be okay.</p><p>Being in familiar surroundings, with loved ones nearby, did nothing to curb Donald’s night terrors and Scrooge was forced to hire a shrink to pick the young duck’s brain; try and find the source of his problems he’s been having recently. Just like when Donald was going through this same stuff as a kid.</p><p>A relapse, Donald’s therapist called it. He had already been diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder from the crash, but with the help of his family he managed to get over it and move on with his life. But apparently when Trauma forced that memory to the forefront of his mind, it caused all of that hard work to be undone and left Donald a complete and utter wreck.</p><p>The therapist recommended that Donald be kept away from any stressful situations, the last thing he needed was to be reminded of his parent’s deaths and having him in a safe and relaxed place was the best way to help his current mental state. While Scrooge and Della were disappointed, after all it meant that they’d have to take a break from their adventures to look after him, but they agreed anyway because he was worth it to them. They were there for him back then and they’d be there for him now.</p><p>Normally Donald would have been ecstatic to get a break from life threatening adventures and finally have some down time with his family, but that would have been before he became a superhero and defender of earth. He knew he needed rest but he couldn’t abandon his responsibilities as Paperinik, the people of Duckburg depended on him to fight the criminal organizations and alien invaders plaguing it.</p><p>Unfortunately, he might as well have been throwing gasoline onto the fire.</p><p>Being a superhero risking his life on a daily basis to protect the citizens of Duckburg, fighting the very same race that spawned Trauma, did nothing to help his mental state at all but what choice did he have? The world needed Paperinik.</p><p>That’s when Donald started to lose control.</p><p>It was a subtle thing at first, he started hitting criminals harder than normal and was a bit more abrasive towards those he cared about. But then he started getting more vicious in fights, more violent, and he began to push away all the friends he made; lashing out in unjustified anger. They were all scared, he could see it in their eyes, he was turning into something horrible and they couldn’t do anything to stop it.</p><p>Donald didn’t care, he thought that if he just threw himself into his Paperinik persona and focused entirely on that he’d be able to distract himself from the storm of feelings brewing inside of him, forcing down the bad memories that kept bubbling up to the surface. Staying out far later than he usually did, pushing himself harder and harder in fights under the false pretense that it would help him get over the death of his parents.</p><p>Then he broke Re-volt’s collarbone with a kick and realized that he was getting worse, much worse. The anger he felt from that horrible day was beginning to consume him, taking him over from the inside, and it was starting to show. Donald knew that if he kept as he was, he may very well turn into one of the monsters he strove to fight.</p><p>He had to do something and fast. He couldn’t go to Scrooge or Della about this, they couldn’t know about his secret identity as Paperinik; but he didn’t want to go to his superfriends about this either, the last thing Donald needed was for him to be a burden on them after everything that’s happened.</p><p>So, Donald stumbled through silent streets in his civilian identity, just trying to wrap his head around the problems that had been plaguing him for so long. The death of his parents had left deep emotional scars upon him, scars that he had never truly managed to get over even when he managed to put those memories on the back burner and now it was tearing him apart.</p><p>“Oh, what do I do? What the heck do I do? I need a sign or something!” Donald moaned to himself, putting his hand on a wall only to feel the crinkling of paper when he did so.</p><p>When he looked up, he saw that he had placed his hand on a US navy recruitment poster. A picturesque view of some sailors decked out in uniforms, several battleships sailing behind them over a sunset lit sea.</p><p>Seeing that poster got Donald thinking, the navy could be good for him, wide open oceans, the feeling of sea spray on his face, the wind in his hair. He always did love the ocean, it’s why he asked Scrooge for those boating lessons after Della started taking flight lessons.</p><p>He’d probably fit right in with the sailors. Not to mention that stability was what he needed the most right now, a structured life without surprises or threats upon his life; a getaway from his adventures.</p><p>As tempting as it was to simply run away with the navy and start a new life on the ocean, there was a very obvious problem with that plan: Paperinik. He couldn’t just retire the cowl like that, especially with the evronian’s posing a serious threat to earth. On the other hand he couldn’t keep dressing up as a hero to fight them, the stress of the job was getting to him and he was starting to feel like he wasn’t worthy of the title anymore; not after how he’s been acting recently.</p><p>Donald found himself at a crossroads: does he abandon the superhero persona to save his own sanity, thus potentially leaving millions vulnerable to attack; or does he keep the cape and sacrifice himself for the greater good?</p><p>Neither idea appealed to him, mainly because it meant he’d have to sacrifice one of his identities for the sake of the other. But he had reached a point where Donald Duck and Paperinik could no longer co-exist.</p><p>‘Ya know what’ Donald thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s way too late to be thinking about this, I’ll just head home and sleep on this for a while. Come up with a plan in the morning.’</p><p>The young duck quickly headed home after that, catching a quick bus back to Killmotor hill, still weighing his options the whole way there.</p><p>But when he arrived, he heard voices coming from the kitchen. The voices of Scrooge and Della duck, from what little he could make out from his position it was clear they were talking about him in some form so he decided to get closer.</p><p>“-worse than before Scrooge, it’s so much worse. I’m really getting worried about him.” Della said. “It’s our eighth birthday all over again.”</p><p>“Ah know Della, Ah know. But all we can do is be there for the lad, he needs us more than ever now to let him know everything will be okay.” Scrooge replied.</p><p>“I know but…” Della leaned in towards her uncle. “I think he’s been sneaking out at night.”</p><p>“What?” Said Scrooge.</p><p>“What?” Donald whispered from his spot behind the door.</p><p>The female duck huffed. “I mean haven’t you noticed him with bags under his eyes every morning? The way he seems so tired all the time? The knicks and bruises that seem to appear out of nowhere?”</p><p>Scrooge frowned. “Come now, that’s just how Donald always is. You know how clumsy he can be sometimes, he’s bound to get in a few accidents now and then.”</p><p>“Oh really? Just a few days ago I went to check on him while he was sleeping and when I lifted up his blankets it looked like he had bruised ribs. You don’t get that from a household accident!”</p><p>Donald pressed a hand against his side almost reflexively, he remembered that day; he had accidentally gotten ambushed by a whole mess of beagle boys in a warehouse and had to fight his way out, one of them must have gotten a lucky shot in with a crowbar.</p><p>“Well, now that you mention it he does seem abnormally high strung, even with the current circumstances.” Scrooge replied with a tone of uncertainty. “But that doesn’t mean my nephew is running out at night to do god knows what, I trust Donald to not keep secrets from us.”</p><p>‘Okay that hurt more than it should have’ Donald thought to himself, the guilt setting in. Which in turn was quickly overwhelmed with panic when it suddenly registered that his family was getting suspicious about his late night outings. They were catching on, it wouldn’t be long until they found out what he had been doing.</p><p>Imagines of Della and Scrooge staring at him with a mixture of shock and betrayal flashed through his mind, he could already picture what they would say to him, how they would be completely and utterly panicking at this new revelation.</p><p>Best case scenario they’d lead a full on interrogation, forcing him to admit all the secrets he’s been keeping about ONE, lyla, Xahdoom, and everyone else. Worst case…..they force him to walk away from the superhero life forever.</p><p>Donald couldn’t breath, he tried to suck in air but it wasn’t doing him any good. The room started to spin around him, his whole world felt like it was crumbling around him; first having traumatic memories brought back, then becoming a murderer, and now this. It was too much for the duck.</p><p>In his stupor, he hadn’t even noticed that Scrooge and Della had stopped talking and were making their way to the door. The wooden slab flying open and slamming right into Donald’s face, knocking him to the floor.</p><p>Donald merely laid there, still letting out panicked breaths, even as his sister immediately rushed to his side and started checking him over. she was saying something but everything sounded like it was so far away he couldn’t make it out, but she seemed to be scared for him.</p><p>It wasn’t until that he was sat back up and a firm hand began to slap against his back that he started to snap out of it.</p><p>“DONALD! LAD! LOOK AT ME!” Scrooge screeched.</p><p>Donald obeyed, turning to his uncle.</p><p>“Focus on me, alright? Everything is fine. Just breath, slowly.”</p><p>Donald started taking in deeper breaths, holding the air in for a few seconds before letting it back out. The action had a calming effect on him as his heart finally stopped pounding.</p><p>“That’s it, deep breaths in and out. It’s okay, we’re here.”</p><p>Donald swallowed. “Wha- what happened?”</p><p>“You had a panic attack! That’s what!” Della said, bringing her twin into a tight hug. “Don’t ever do that again donnie! You scared me half to death!”</p><p>Donald said nothing, he just wrapped his arms around his other half and returned the hug in earnest. The familiar smells of his sibling and the feeling of her warmth against his own giving him comfort, bringing him back down to earth.</p><p>“Listen Donald,” Scrooge began, kneeling beside him. “You’re not hiding anything from us are ya?”</p><p>“No, I’m not.” Donald replied, almost a little too quickly.</p><p>“Are ya sure? You know you can tell us anything, right?”</p><p>“Scrooge, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.” the duck replied, lying through his teeth.</p><p>“Well alright then. I’ll trust ya on this.”</p><p>And there was the guilt again, he didn’t like hiding his secret identity from his family especially not now of all times but he didn’t have a choice; he couldn’t drop a bomb like that on him, especially after doing this for two years under their noses. So instead he decided to try and put them at ease.</p><p>“Hey, how about we spend the day together tomorrow? Just the three of us?” Donald suggested, still hugging Della. “Have a nice relaxing day on the town, maybe go by the beach or something?”</p><p>The billionaire duck smiled. “I’d like that. What do you think, Della?”</p><p>“Sure, sounds like fun. We haven’t really spent a lot of time together as a family since Donald’s been busy taking care of Ducklair tower.” Della replied.</p><p>After a few more assurances that he was, in fact, alright. Donald made his way back to his room with Della discreetly following behind him, no doubt convinced that he was moments away from collapsing in another fit of stress and panic.</p><p>She wasn’t too far off the mark. For the moment that Donald closed the door to his bedroom, he slammed his back against the wood and slid down to a sitting position; when did everything get so complicated? It used to be so simple, fight the villains, save the civilians, annoy Angus Fangus, and have fun while doing all of it; he was happy back then. Now he felt like he was barely clinging to his sanity, he was teetering on the brink of the abyss and could fall in at any moment.</p><p>He really needed a hug right about now.</p><p>Sighing, Donald picked himself back off the floor and threw himself into bed, knowing that focusing on the negatives wasn’t gonna do him any favors right now. He needed some rest for tomorrow, it’d be nice to get a break and just let go from his worries for a day; give himself time to heal and recover, he’d be able to figure out something then.</p><p>‘Things will be okay, I’m tougher than this.’ Donald thought to himself. ‘I just need time to think’</p><p>Soon enough Donald fell into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in awhile, a lazy smile on his face as he snuggled into the pillow.</p><p>Unfortunately, the world had a way of throwing the poor duck for a loop again and again. For when Donald awoke the next morning, it was to a city in flames.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************</p>
</div><p>Webby gently closed the book in her shaking hands, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. What happened to Donald it...it was horrible, she knew being a hero was dangerous but she couldn’t believe just how much of a toll it took on the poor sailor.</p><p>Looking up at the boys, she saw that they were equally shocked: Huey and Dewey were clinging to each other, their faces pale and uneasy, while Louie had a white knuckled grip on his sleeping back with an expression that made it seem like he was about to throw up.</p><p>Webby slowly stored the journal back into the hidden compartment on her bag. “M-maybe that’s enough for the night. We can always read the rest later.”</p><p>The rest of the triplets nodded, clearly disturbed by all the turmoil their uncle had to go through when he was younger, and zipped themselves up into their sleeping bags.</p><p>Donald would awake the next morning to see that Louie had snuck into his sleeping bag and was clinging to his surrogate father like a safety blanket.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The Paperinik arc ends next chapter gents, Buckle up; it's gonna be a rough ride.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. the death of paperinik</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>and no this isn't a bait and switch. Paperinik WILL die in this chapter. I guarantee it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Ya know, I think that was the first time we’ve ever gone on an adventure without anything trying to kill us.” Remarked Della.</p><p>“Tell me about it.” added Donald. “I can’t believe how nice Haka was! He’s like a smarter and calmer version of Storkcules.”</p><p>“I’m just surprised by how easily he was willing to part with some of his ancient texts. All we had to do was swear to preserve the stories and he practically threw them at us!” Said Scrooge, tossing one of the aforementioned books up in his hands. “I was preparing for a fight and that man was preparing lunch, there wasn’t even a monster guarding the place!”</p><p>“Well did you see the size of him? If there was a monster, he probably took care of it a long time ago.”</p><p>Della hummed. “That would explain some of his decor. I’m pretty sure his end table was made out of a cyclops skull.”</p><p>While the rest of the adults were busy at the front of the plane, gushing about their find and how abnormally smooth the entire adventure went in comparison to their usual fare. The kids were hiding behind a few crates, subtly be darned they had to find out what happened next in the tale of Paperinik.</p><p>“Okay I think the coast is clear. We’ve probably only got about an hour or so before they finish gabbing about those old books so we’ll have to work quickly.” Said Louie as he peeked out from behind their makeshift clubhouse. “Huey, you’re the fastest reader. Think you can handle it?”</p><p>Huey took in a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s get started, no matter how painful it is to read; we need to know what happened next.”</p><p>Bracing themselves for another dark chapter in their uncle’s life, Huey cracked open the journal.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Donald fell out of bed with a yelp when the ground began to shake beneath him, the sound of explosions coming from outside with every quake. After the initial panic and confusion wore off from such a rude awakening, Donald scrambled to his feet and rushed to the window to assess the current situation.</p><p>At first he had thought it to be one of the various technological or mystical threats that frequently attacked the mansion, but when he reached the window and looked outside he wished that it was Magica or a rampaging robot; they certainly would have been easier to deal with than the invasion force that was currently decimating the city.</p><p>It was an entire fleet of Evronian ships, swooping in and alternating between blasting buildings to rubble and dispatching more soldiers onto the ground. Heading them up was a massive flagship that hung high above the city like a harbinger of doom and, knowing who was on board that ship, it might as well have been. The leader of the Evronian fleet himself: General Zondag</p><p>Donald had never met General Zondag face to face before, but the two were very familiar with each other since Paperinik was the one that was constantly foiling his invasion plans of earth; something that infuriated him to no end. From what he did know about the alien is that while he wasn’t the leader of the Evronians, he was one of the highest if not the highest ranking officer in their entire military. After the initial strike teams failed, General Zondag had decided to take a more active role in his troop’s activities and start managing them personally.</p><p>It seemed as though he had grown tired of his constant defeats and decided to simply hit Paperinik, and by extension Duckburg, head on in a desperate gambit to wipe Donald out for good.</p><p>Donald’s first instinct was to panic again, he was in no way prepared for an all out assault from his greatest adversary; neither physically or mentally. But as his breaths started to get shallow, he literally beat down his fear and forced himself to focus. He couldn’t afford to lose his cool again, not right now; the world needed a hero more than ever and ducks don’t back down.</p><p>In any case, it was clear to Donald that he needed to get to Ducklair tower and FAST.</p><p>‘Thank goodness I brought my Paperinik uniform with me when I moved back in.’ Donald thought to himself as he moved some of the loose floorboards under his bed to get to the aforementioned outfit.</p><p>Getting changed in record time, Donald leaped out of the window and used his x-transformer shield to make the flight to Ducklair tower. Normally he’d take his car but the last thing he needed was to draw unnecessary-</p><p>Donald squawked when a stray laser beam just barely missed his head, looking behind him he saw that a group of Evronian’s had spotted him and had begun to make chase. Which made sense, Zondag likely marked him as a priority target to be eliminated at all costs.</p><p>‘Maybe I can shake em- no, I don’t have time….ah screw it.’ Donald spun around in the air until he was facing his pursuers, the hero fired several energy bolts out of his signature weapon with terrifying accuracy and managed to shoot down every last one of them.</p><p>Giving a quick ‘hmph’ Donald continued on his way, he hated having to listen to the screams below as the evronians stormed the streets but he couldn’t help them without a plan. Fighting a few squads was one thing but this was an entire fleet!</p><p><b>“Donald?! Are you there?! Come in!”</b> The comm line on the x-transformer shield came to life with ONE’s voice on the other side.</p><p>“I’m here ONE, please tell me the tower is secure.” Donald replied as he got closer to his destination.</p><p>
  <b>“Don’t worry, I’ve activated all of it’s automated defenses. Nothing gets in or out without my approval. Luckily the Evronians seem more concerned with hunting you down then attempting to penetrate the tower.” </b>
</p><p>Well at least he was getting some kind of good news. “Alright, I’ll be there shortly. Just hang in there ONE.”</p><p>As Donald got closer to the tower, he saw that the entire thing was covered by a massive blue forcefield along with several other automated turrets. For the most parts the Evronian soldiers were ignoring it, assuming making an attack on the tower wasn’t worth the effort, but every now and then a cocky soldier would try to breach the barrier only to end up getting fried by the force field like it was a massive bug zapper.</p><p>That got a chuckle out of Donald.</p><p>The forcefield then opened a hole large enough for Paperinik to squeeze through, allowing him to fly into his inner sanctum, before shutting behind him. Thankfully none of the Evronians outside seemed to notice him and if they did they didn’t seem to care.</p><p>Donald skidded to a stop in front of ONE, stumbling slightly before catching his balance in front of the artificial intelligence who seemed to be quite busy managing the defense of the tower.</p><p><b>“Ah, good. You’re here.”</b> Said ONE.</p><p>“Hi ONE, I need a situation report now. How bad is it?”</p><p>ONE grimaced. <b>“Pretty bad….”</b></p><p>One of the big screens flashed to life, showing a news report of the streets which were currently being swarmed by Evronian soldiers.</p><p>
  <b>“The Evronian’s are truly ‘going all out’, General Zondag has sent out all the forces he currently has at his disposal and has even seemed to call in a few reinforcements just for you. I’ve hacked into their com lines and apparently they’re planning on leveling the city in order to flush you out and the general has no intention of taking you alive.”</b>
</p><p>Donald gulped</p><p>
  <b>“It gets worse…”</b>
</p><p>“Of course it does, why wouldn’t it?” Donald groaned.</p><p>Another image came onto the screen and, to his horror, Donald recognized the Evronian smashing up Glomgold’s headquarters almost instantly.</p><p>“T-Trauma?! But he’s dead!”</p><p><b>“He is.”</b> explained ONE. <b>“but after your battle with Trauma, the Evronians collected some of his DNA from the scene and used it to create Trauma clones. Granted it was a clearly rushed job as the clones’ mental capacity is extremely limited and none of them are anywhere near as strong as the original, but they are all far stronger than the average soldier.”</b></p><p>Donald felt his legs give out beneath him, causing ONE to quickly extend a chair out from the floor to catch him, his breath leaving his lungs as if he had been punched in the chest. He couldn’t face Trauma again, not after last time, he was still recovering! It didn’t matter that these were clones, it didn’t matter that they weren’t as strong, everytime he looked at it he kept thinking back to that mangled corpse on the ground; the corpse that he created.</p><p>All of a sudden a jet of ice cold water was sprayed in his face, simultaneously angering him while snapping him out of what was undoubtedly going to be another panic attack.</p><p>Swinging his fists wildly, Donald cried out. “HEY! WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?!”</p><p><b>“I’m sorry old cape, but you need to stay focused. Your greatest enemy is practically on your doorstep, now is not the time to panic.”</b> ONE explained, retracting the water gun. <b>“We need to come up with an attack plan.”</b></p><p>“You’re right.” Donald replied. “You’re always right. But what can we do? Sure I’m Paperinik, the greatest hero on earth, but I’m still just one duck! I’d need an army to take on General Zondag!”</p><p><b>“We have one.”</b> ONE replied, only for Donald to shake his head.</p><p>“ONE, I appreciate the optimism. But there’s only two of us, not what I’d call an army!”</p><p>
  <b>“I wasn’t talking about me….”</b>
</p><p>It took Donald a second to realize what his computer friend was implying, when it suddenly hit him. He did have an army, an army of friends and allies that would gladly lay down their lives and fight by his side to protect the earth from this threat; allies that he just so happened to have on speed dial. A plan soon began to form inside of his mind and a cocky smile grew onto his face.</p><p>Any sense of fear disappeared from Donald’s form, all the stress and trauma retreating into the recesses of his mind as he stood firm.</p><p>“I’ve got it. Call the others: call Xadhoom, Urk, Lyla, heck call everybody you can ONE. Tell them all to meet me at Mcduck Manor, the giant mansion on the hill overlooking the city, if we pull this off the Evronians will never bother earth again!” Donald exclaimed, voice dripping with confidence.</p><p><b>"Right ho! I’ll get in touch with each of them...oh and Donald?”</b> ONE said giving the briefest of pauses. <b>“It’s nice to have you back.”</b></p><p>Donald shot his friend a smile as he left, it was good to be back.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Paperinik knew that if he flew back to the manor, he’d probably attract a whole lot of unwanted attention, attention he really didn’t need right now. So he decided that the best way to evade the Evronians was to hoof it through the subway and sewer systems; it wasn’t fast but at least he could travel without being spotted by undesirables.</p><p>After checking his GPS several times to ensure that he was in the right place, Donald pushed open the manhole cover and ascended to the surface. He was pleased to see that his posse was already waiting for him at the gates: Xadhoom, Urk, Lyla lay, and even the Red Raider managed to show up. What he didn’t expect to see was the massive crowd of what he could only assume to be time travelers standing behind them.</p><p>“Great. You all made it.” Said the hero as he climbed out of the sewer, gaining the attention of the rest of the group who smiled when they saw him.</p><p>“As if I’d pass up a chance to take on the general himself.” Said Xadhoom. “So what’s the plan of attack? Are we gonna sneak aboard his ship? Or just attack him head on?”</p><p>“All will be revealed in time, right now we need to get inside the manor. I’ve got a few more allies in there that could help us out. Speaking of…” Paperinik turned to face the crowd behind Lyla. “Who are these people?”</p><p>“Time cops, fellow androids, concerned citizens, just individuals from the 23rd century who are very interested in making sure that the Evronians lose this particular battle.” explained the time traveling android. “After all, this is the battle that turned the tide of war against the evronian empire across the universe.”</p><p>Well it was a comfort to know that history was on his side, but with all the crazy timeline shenanigans that occurred as a result of time travel that didn’t necessarily guarantee him a win today.</p><p>“Good, we need all the help we can get. Now come on, innocent lives are at stake here.”</p><p>After pushing his way through the gates, which were oddly unlocked for some reason, Paperinik and company jogged up the hill to the manor. As they got closer they could already hear the shouts of Scrooge and Della arguing.</p><p>“-do you mean we can’t go out looking for him?!” Della screamed.</p><p>“Lass, it’s a full scale invasion out there. We can’t just go wandering around looking for Donald! The lad is tough, he can take care of himself!” Scrooge replied.</p><p>“And what if he’s been captured?! What if he’s being probed as we speak?! Scrooge we need to find him now!”</p><p>“Della be reasonable! We don’t have the slightest clue where he-”</p><p>Paperinik decided he had heard enough and calmly threw open the doors to the manor, getting the attention of both ducks whose jaws dropped when they saw the Duck Avenger standing in the doorway with a motley crew of characters behind him</p><p>“I’m sorry, was I interrupting something?” Said the hero in a rather teasing tone.</p><p>“P-Paperinik?!” Della stuttered, clearly trying not to geek out. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>“We’re being invaded by aliens and the city is on fire, why do you think I’m here? I need your help.”</p><p>Scrooge peered behind Paperinik to get a better look at his friends, sensing the coming question that the billionaire had the hero beat him to the punch.</p><p>“By the way these are my friends: Xadhoom, a living supernova whose people were conquered by the evronians; Lyla Lay, a time traveling android from the twenty third century; the Red Raider, a time traveling pirate also from the twenty third century; and Urk, an Iroquois warrior from an alternate dimension.” Paperinik then turned to face his friends. “Everyone, this is Scrooge Mcduck, a seasoned adventurer and the richest duck in the world and his sidekick Della Duck, who just so happens to be my biggest fan.”</p><p>He heard the aforementioned girl let out a small squeak of excitement.</p><p>“Now that introductions are out of the way. How about we go over the plan?”</p><p>Scrooge blinked. “Plan? What plan?”</p><p>“The plan to stop the invasion of course.” Paperinik explained. “And I need all of you to be able to pull this off. If it works, the Evronians will never attack earth again.”</p><p>The squad was then moved into one of the many dining rooms in McDuck manor, where Donald laid out a large map of Duckburg and picked up several nearby objects to represent his team and the Evronians.</p><p>“Now then here’s the situation, we’ve got two major problems that need to be dealt with currently: General Zondag and the forces he has on the ground. The former is heading up the entire invasion while the latter are capturing civilians to be turned into Coolflames-”</p><p>“Coolflames?” Scrooge said, interrupting the hero.</p><p>“Races that have been drained of all their emotions and turned into slaves for the Evronian empire, it’s what they did to Xadhoom’s people and why she wants to stop them so badly.”</p><p>The alien nodded in agreement, her eyes never leaving the map.</p><p>“As I was saying, Coolflames that can serve as additional reinforcements for the Evronians, not to mention they also have additional super Evronians cloned from my old enemy, Trauma, that are trying to level the city. For this reason we’ll need to break up into two teams to deal with both of them: one on the ground and one in the air.” Paperinik pointed towards Scrooge. “Mcduck, you, Urk, and Lyla will be the ground team working with the militia that Lyla has brought in to assist you; you’ll need to focus on rescuing as many civilians as you can while also dispatching the Trauma clones, scrooge I want to help keep the troops organized.”</p><p>Lyla then decided to interject. “Wait why him?”</p><p>“Because he’s a master strategist and he’s loud, your forces will listen to him if he’s got something to say.” Said Paperinik. “He’s the best candidate for devising a way to break the Evronian’s ranks.”</p><p>Scrooge gave a smug grin at the praise he received from earth’s defender.</p><p>“Anyways, the team in the air will consist of Xadhoom, Red Raider, Della, and myself. I assume your plane is still operational Della?”</p><p>The female duck nodded. “Got it all fueled up and waiting out back.”</p><p>“Good, good.” Donald turned back to the map. “You’ll be flying the Red Raider and I over Zondag’s flagship where we’ll drop down and infiltrate the place, Xadhoom will be providing both covering fire for us as well as distract any of the Evronian ships from us. The idea is to get to the main engine room and destroy the flagship, after that the entire invasion will be a ship without a captain. Once you’ve dropped us down, Della, I want you to rendezvous with the ground forces and help evacuate the city. We need to get as many innocents out as possible.”</p><p>Xadhoom raised a hand. “And where exactly will I be during all of this?”</p><p>Paperinik shot her a cheeky smile. “Why doing what you do best of course: blowing stuff up.”</p><p>The alien eagerly grinned and rubbed her hands together in anticipation.</p><p>“Once we take out General Zondag, the rest of his forces will panic and lose formation. After that happens, it will simply be a matter of cleaning out the remaining forces.” Paperinik finished. “Any questions? No? Good, now let’s get moving. Every minute we waste, more lives are put in danger.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Donald never truly got the appeal of flight, sure it was a quick way to get around and it was extremely handy in a fight but he treated it more as a mode of transport, he never really got the same raw thrills out of it as his sister did. Even when flying through a swarm of alien ships, many of which were being swiftly shot down by Xadhoom before they could cause any damage to the cloudslayer, Donald was still pretty unimpressed by the whole experience as opposed to Della who was ecstatic to be in such a scenario.</p><p>Or she would have been, but oddly enough she seemed to be uncharacteristically worried; a rare sight for an adrenaline junkie like her.</p><p>“Is something wrong? You’re usually much more upbeat when we’ve adventured together in the past.” Asked Paperinik with a look of concern. “I would have thought you would be bouncing in your seat at the prospect of fighting off hostile aliens.”</p><p>Della squirmed in her seat slightly, her gaze never leaving the windscreen in front of her, before sighing and looking at the hero from the corner of her eye.</p><p>“It’s just….My brother, he went missing.”</p><p>Paperinik raised an eyebrow. “You have a brother?”</p><p>“Yeah, his name’s Donald. He’s a bit of a klutz and has some serious anger issues but he’s also one of the toughest guys I know and he never gives up no matter what. You probably would have liked him.” Della paused. “But for some reason he always seemed to be somewhere else whenever you showed up.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” replied the hero, his eyes nervously darting away.</p><p>“With the way Angus Fangus was always riding him though, it’d make sense he couldn’t go adventuring with us.” Della said with a half hearted chuckle. “Lately though he’s been in a really dark place.”</p><p>Paperinik motioned for her to continue.</p><p>“When we were kids, we got into a car crash with our parents, went straight over the side of a mountain. I was in a coma for a few days and when I woke up I got told that Donald had made it out with only a few bruises and a concussion, our parents on the other hand weren’t so lucky.” Tears started to well up in Della’s eyes. “Do you know how hard it was to watch my parents get lowered into the ground?”</p><p>“I understand perfectly. I lost my parents when I was young as well.” Paperinik said with a nod, withholding just the right amount of information.</p><p>Della sniffled. “Yeah, it was pretty rough on both of us. It’s a good thing Scrooge took us in and helped us get through our grief, if it wasn’t for him I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to us. I thought Donald had gotten better since then but now….”</p><p>Della paused to duck under a few Evronian ships flying straight towards them.</p><p>“Now it’s like he’s grieving all over again, he’s been pushing us away, lashing out randomly, and I’m almost sure he’s been sneaking out of the manor at night.”</p><p>“To do what?”</p><p>“I don’t know!” Said Della. “I mean after he started coming home with injuries I started looking through his things for clues but I couldn’t find anything at all! Whatever he’s been up to he’s been pretty good about keeping it a secret.”</p><p>‘If only you knew Della.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>“It’s just...I’m really worried about him. After mom and dad died we only had each other, don’t get me wrong I love Scrooge and he’s been the greatest uncle ever, but Donald’s my other half. We’ve always been close, from the very day we hatched, and to see him so...broken. To know that he’s been keeping secrets from us...it hurts, it hurts me. I just wish he was back to his old clumsy self again…”</p><p>There came that guilty feeling, hitting him full force and giving him a painful reminder of the choice he’d have to make soon: being Donald Duck or Paperinik, only now it was beginning to look like a choice between his family and Paperinik.</p><p>Before he could try to say a few comforting words to Della, the back of the sunchaser opened up.</p><p>“Alright! We’re over the drop zone, it’s now or never PK!” Red Raider shouted.</p><p>Paperinik looked back over at Della and put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay that’s my cue. But before I go, don’t worry about your brother; it sounds like he’s just trying to work through some personal issues, he’ll get better, I’m sure of it. I know I did.”</p><p>On that note Donald rushed to the back of the plane where the time pirate was standing, the massive flagship directly below them and looking even more intimidating up close. But that didn’t deter either of them in the slightest, too much was at stake to back out now.</p><p>“Okay we jump on three!” Paperinik shouted over the rushing winds. “One-”</p><p>Red Raider grabbed Paperinik’s wrist and jumped out of the plane with him. “THREE!”</p><p>Despite the fact that he was completely taken by surprise, Donald quickly regained his composure and activated his X-transformer shield and gently glided down to the roof of the ship alongside Red Raider. Shooting the rooster a glare as he did.</p><p>“What?” the Red Raider said with a chuckle, driving a blade into the steel of the ship. “You said jump on three. I said three.”</p><p>“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Paperinik replied, keeping watch for any Evronians that might have spotted them.</p><p>It took the Red Raider all of about two minutes to cut a hole large enough in the hull for both of them to fit through, the metal flying past them and over the side from the high winds. Paperinik jumped in first, followed by the time pirate shortly after.</p><p>Despite the formation of a huge gaping hole in the ship, it was almost completely silent when the duo dropped down into one of the corridors, there were no alarms, no soldiers rushing to see what happened, it was just the gentle hum of the ship's engines and the rush of air from outside.</p><p>“Okay, I thought that would have gained a stronger response.” Paperinik remarked with a shrug. “Oh well, this works in our favor. All we have to do is sneak to the engine room without attracting-”</p><p>A klaxon suddenly cut through the air, interrupting Paperinik, and alarm lights filled the hallway with red.</p><p><b>“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! THERE IS A BREACH ON THE WEST CORRIDOR!”</b> an automated voice said through the alarm sound.</p><p>“Whelp there goes the element of surprise.” The large rooster grumbled. “I suppose we’ll have to fight our way through now.”</p><p>Paperinik readied his X-transformer shield. “Looks like it.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Thankfully, General Zondag didn’t seem to anticipate a direct attack on the flagship at all as most of the troops sent to stop Paperinik and Red Raider were normal Evronians with small arms. Most of their heavy weapons and super soldiers were on the ground, attacking the city, leaving the security detail aboard the ship somewhat defenseless against the duo.</p><p>Speaking of the ground forces….</p><p>Paperinik slammed his fist into an Evronian, knocking it out cold almost instantly and then turned to his communicator. “ONE! What’s the situation looking like on the ground?!”</p><p><b>“Quite well actually. You were right about Scrooge being a master tactician, the ground forces have formed a defensive perimeter and are holding strong against the Evronians. Even officer Cabrera has managed to rally the remaining duckburg police forces to our cause, with their help we’ve already managed to evacuate hundreds of civilians. Your sister certainly knows how to fly a plane.”</b> The AI replied.</p><p>“Excellent! And Xahoom?”</p><p>
  <b>“See for yourself.”</b>
</p><p>The communicator feed then cut to a video from one of ONE’s drones, showing Xadhoom blasting ships out of the sky with an eager smile on her face. The alien crafts dropping like flies, they were clearly outgunned by the living supernova. That only made Donald even happier; maybe they could win this after all.</p><p>But as they worked their way through the ship, Donald’s trademarked bad luck finally reared it’s ugly head as a door shot down from the ceiling in front of them. Red Raider saw it first and managed to dive clear of if before it could block their path, Paperinik on the other hand missed the opportunity entirely and ended up trapped on the other side.</p><p>“Aw phooey!” Paperinik shouted, slamming his fist against the metal barrier.</p><p>“Hang on, I’ll pry it open again!” Red Raider shouted from the otherside.</p><p>“No! We don’t have time for that, keep heading towards the engine room! I’ll find another way around!”</p><p>Red Raider sighed from the other side. “Alright. Good luck PK!”</p><p>Paperinik nodded, even though his ally couldn’t see him, and headed down another corridor. Taking a left, then a right, then a right again, followed up by another left. This kept up until the superhero finally realized something very important.</p><p>“I think I’m lost…”</p><p>Which he was, as he had been in such a hurry to get aboard the flagship that he hadn’t taken the time to get any sort of reconnaissance done. Granted it didn’t matter much since the forces he was facing aboard the ship were more than manageable but now he was really kicking himself for not learning the layout of the ship.</p><p>As he leaned on a wall to catch his breath, Paperinik accidentally flipped a switch to reveal a doorway that had managed to escape his notice.</p><p>“Please. Do come in, I’ve been waiting for you.” Said a commanding voice within the room.</p><p>His curiosity getting the better of him, the duck avenger peered in through the door and his jaw nearly hit the floor at what he saw. It was the ship’s bridge, control panels and screens lining the massive room with a large windshield providing a near perfect panoramic view of the carnage currently happening outside; oddly enough the entire control center was absent of the crew that was expected to be there, in fact there were no Evronians in sight.</p><p>Except for one.</p><p>Standing in the center of the entire room, decked out in the same black uniform that Paperinik had seen so many times from the other side of a computer screen, was the big bad himself: General Zondag.</p><p>“What is this? An ambush?” Asked Paperinik.</p><p>“Of course not, I wouldn’t have invited you in if it was.”</p><p>Paperinik took a tentative step into the control room, keeping his eyes on his peripherals in case there were any hidden Evronians waiting to jump out.</p><p>“Heck of a sight ain’t it?” Remarked Zondag.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“The sight of a city being reduced to rubble and ash, mighty structures that took years to build being toppled in seconds, it’s always something I take pleasure in viewing no matter how many times I see it happen.” Zondag said with a calm grin. “I’ve conquered hundreds of worlds during my time as an Evronian general, you know, enslaved millions of feckless creatures; some extremely primitive like yours while others were leaps and bounds ahead of the technology possessed by my own people. It didn’t really matter in the end, they all fell the same way and they all just became additional territories of the Evronian empire or mere space dust depending on how useful they were; each and everyone of them was easily conquered by the might of my fleet. Until I came to this cursed green and blue marble you call earth.”</p><p>Zondag’s grin disappeared as he turned around to face Paperinik. “Never have I encountered so much difficulty in conquering a single planet before, especially considering this ball of dirt has only one defender: you.”</p><p>Donald kept his guard up as the general took a step forward.</p><p>“I will admit, I didn’t think much of you when I was told that an earthing had managed to disrupt our plans. I had assumed that you were just some troublesome mutant that was in the wrong place at the wrong time; but then you kept. Popping. Up.” Zondag almost growled. “Putting a stop to our plans again and again, sometimes through sheer luck. And you became less of an annoyance and more of a threat, but it wasn’t until you managed to kill Trauma in hand to hand combat that I realized just how much of a problem you really were.”</p><p>Zondag got closer. “In a strange sort of way, I respect you. You are the first individual to actually give me some sort of challenge on my campaign of galactic domination, the first one to actually pose a dire threat to my plans, one that has been far more stubborn than any would be heroes that have tried to put a stop to me in the past. Yes you are by far the most stubborn individual I have had the DISHONOR OF MEETING!!!”</p><p>Zondag took in a breath to calm himself. “None of that will save you now but it is worth noting. Now then, I assume you are aware that only one of us will walk away from this encounter today. So shall we get started?”</p><p>Paperinik nodded, and readied himself for the coming fight. “Let’s dance freak.”</p><p>Zondag was the first to move, firing a beam of energy from his fist that Paperinik was barely able to dodge; years of superhero work had left him with hair trigger reflexes. The hero quickly returning fire with his own energy beams from his signature shield, one of which managed to actually hit Zondag in the shoulder; but that did little to deter the alien.</p><p>What followed next could best be described as a shootout between the Evronian and the Duck. Each of them blasting their own brand of energy beams at the other and taking cover before their opponent. Thanks to the fact that he was smaller and quicker, Donald easily managed to evade all of the energy beams fired by the general and get several good shots in; being at least triple the size of a normal Evronian gave the hero a much larger target to fire at.</p><p>After taking the seventh shot to the chest, clearly in pain, Zondag muttered under his breath. “That’s it, enough of this foolishness.”</p><p>The general pulled out a red laser sword (or is it a lightsaber? Disney owns Star Wars right? Is it okay to call it that? Whatever, it’s not important.) and lept towards Paperinik, quickly closing the distance and slashing him across the chest.</p><p>Thankfully the Duck Avenger’s quick reflexes came in clutch again as he was able to narrowly avoid being chopped in two by the general, the sword did manage to skim the front of his form and left him with a shallow burn mark.</p><p>Donald hissed in pain but kept his composure, this was the most important fight of his life after all, he couldn’t afford to lose his cool now. Which was difficult since he was completely terrified on the inside.</p><p>This whole situation, everything about it, it was enough to send Donald straight into another panic attack. Despite his calm demeanor, everything that had happened over the past few months was haunting him even now; all the fear and anger still threatened to take him over. He knew that there was a good chance he was going to die today, but he treated this knowledge the only way he knew how: he ignored it all. All of his doubts and hesitation were forced down deep inside, for in this moment Donald needed to step up and be brave, he needed to power through all the trauma and be the hero the world needed at this moment.</p><p>So he kept fighting, running on pure adrenaline to keep himself standing. Ignoring all the anxiety welling up inside of him and focusing on winning the day at all costs. There may not be a tomorrow for him, but there WILL be a tomorrow.</p><p>Paperinik rushed forward and attacked Zondag as he reeled up for another swing, landing several punches to the general’s injured midsection, knocking the wind out of him.</p><p>The general responded by swiping the hero with his sword, which completely whiffed it’s target. Allowing Paperinik to land another blow to his jaw, a sickening crack resonating through the chamber.</p><p>Donald kept himself on the defensive, he knew that he’d never be able to out savage the general. The alien had at least two feet and a hundred pounds on him, so instead the duck chose to keep dodging his swings and landing blows when he was open. A shot to the gut, a blow to the ribs, a few punches to the head; the blows weren’t particularly strong but they were well placed, hitting Zondag where he had been injured from the earlier shootout in an attempt to tire him out which infuriated the general.</p><p>Finally having enough of this punishment, Zondag lunged for the Duck Avenger, hoisted him up by the scruff of his shirt, and threw him across the room where he slammed into a series of computers, destroying them outright in a shower of sparks and metal. Pain almost immediately shot up Paperinik’s back, a dead give away that something had gotten sprained by the collision.</p><p>He never got the chance to get to his feet and Zondag was on him within moments, swinging his sword down in an attempt to chop the hero in half. In desperation to survive, Donald threw up his X-transformer shield to block the blow. While the device did manage to stop Zondag’s attack, stopping the blade dead in it’s tracks, the smoke that emanated from the shield itself along with the crackle of electricity let him know that the device was broken beyond repair.</p><p>Zondag let out another war cry and threw the poor duck again, where he landed on the floor with a crunch.</p><p>“Yep. That was a rib alright…” Donald wheezed, trying and failing to get to his feet as the general advanced on him. Those last two hits had taken a lot out of him, he wasn’t even sure he could physically keep fighting.</p><p>Zondag seemed to pick up on this and cackled. “Oh this is wonderful. My greatest enemy lying before my feet totally helpless, completely at my mercy. This is how your story shall end avenger, you being slain by my hand and your pathetic little resistance being quashed. Your death will take away the hope of your followers, demoralizing them and allowing my troops to completely overwhelm their pathetic little army; they shall-”</p><p>Zondag continued to monologue about how hopeless Paperinik’s situation was, but the duck wasn’t listening. He was entirely focused on the X-transformer shield and how the beeping sound coming from it was getting progressively louder; he may have not been a technical genius like ONE, but even he knew when an electrical device was about to explode. It would be a desperate gambit, one that could very well get him killed, but it was the only move he had left.</p><p>“So avenger, any final words before your inevitable demise?” Asked Zondag.</p><p>Donald pulled himself to his feet, leaning on a nearby control panel for support, keeping his back to Zondag and saying four little words.</p><p>“Ducks. Don’t. Back. DOWN!”</p><p>Donald threw the heavily damaged X-transformer shield at Zondag who simply cut in half mid-air with a smirk on his face. Unfortunately for him, that proved to be a mistake as doing so caused the x-transformer shield to explode right in his face, engulfing him in a ball of pure plasma energy that sent him flying back and Paperinik skidding across the floor.</p><p>Donald just laid on his spot on the floor for a moment, trying to regain his breath. Once he did, he got the nerve to pull himself up and see what had happened to Zondag. Thankfully, the General was still alive but he was anything but unharmed.</p><p>His entire right side had been burned away, the flesh charred and smoking, his right arm hung limply at his side as he lied back against the front control panel. His left side wasn’t doing so hot either, bits and pieces of metal and glass were sticking out of him like shrapnel, every wound bleeding heavily all over the floor. His face had a look of shock and disbelief.</p><p>“You...you beat me. I can’t believe it...you actually managed to beat me…” Zondag coughed. “H-how? How is this possible?”</p><p>Donald stumbled towards the alien warlord. “Because I’m stubborn, because I never give up, and because I refuse to back down. That’s how.”</p><p>Zondag let out a weak chuckle. “Well come on then, finish the job. Kill me and claim victory over my armada.”</p><p>“No.” Paperinik flatly said.</p><p>“No?” replied Zondag. “What do you mean no?!”</p><p>“I won’t kill again, not even you. I lost control of myself last time and I’ve regretted it ever since, I refuse to cross that line ever again.”</p><p>Donald kneeled down until he was face to face with the general. “Besides, killing you won’t accomplish anything. Letting you live on the other hand, forcing you to answer for everything that you’ve done, that’s where things will change.”</p><p>“That’s not going to happen, you may have defeated me but…” Zondag paused as he fished a small device out of his pocket. “I refuse to be taken in alive.”</p><p>Zondag then pressed a small button on the top of the device which immediately lit up and let out a series of loud beeps. “FOR THE EVRONIAN EMPIRE!”</p><p>Even if Donald could have predicted what was about to happen, there was little chance he could have avoided it as the device exploded in Zondag’s hand immediately.</p><p>For a brief moment, Donald’s vision was bathed in white and his ears were ringing. His first instinct was to assume that he had died in the explosion, until he felt the rushing of wind around him and the pain of his injuries set in. When his vision finally cleared up, the hero found himself hurtling towards the ocean at an alarming rate; the shredded remains of his costume flying off as he plummeted downwards. From what little he could see as he was flung towards the water, the flagship was in flame and crashing to the ground in the distance, a massive smoking hole now existed on the front of the ship which is where he was likely blown out of.</p><p>Donald tried to reposition himself midair but it was no use.</p><p>‘Too high, too fast. Can’t shift my weight! It’s gonna be a hard landing!’ Donald mentally screamed right before he hit the water.</p><p>Through some miracle, despite the fact that he hit the water in a belly flop (the worst way you can land in water) with some obviously broken ribs, Donald managed to survive his splashdown and still had enough strength left over to swim to the surface. Something he attributed to the toughness that seemed to run in the Duck family, along with his almost supernatural ability to take punishment.</p><p>Donald's head was above the water for only a few seconds before the flagship finally landed in the ocean, where it sunk like a rock and sent out a massive wave that washed over the poor duck. The seas seemed to be on his side that day as instead of being dragged out deeper into the water, the wave pushed the hero back onto the shore where he started coughing up sea salt.</p><p>He stumbled back onto his feet, the fact that he had lost his hero costume in the explosion barely registering on a mental level, with his only thought that he had to get to a hospital.</p><p>To his credit, considering how injured he was, Donald actually managed to make it pretty far inland; walking three whole city blocks before his body finally gave out and collapsed to the ground, every inch of him was sore and beaten.</p><p>He could still hear the sounds of battle in another part of the city but it seemed so far away now, must have been the shock starting to set in as the adrenaline finally began to wear off, but it didn’t matter to him.</p><p>‘I beat Zondag...I saved the day...that’s all that matters...that’s all that matters…’ The last thing Donald managed to see was several shadows standing over him before it all went black and his consciousness faded away.</p><p>He had done his job, now it was time to put Paperinik to rest.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Kids! Buckle up, We’re landing soon and we need to get ready in case Launchpad crashes the plane again.” Donald called out as he searched the planes for his adorable nephews and niece.</p><p>“Coming uncle Donald!” the kids sounded off, coming out from behind a crate. A strange expression on their faces that the older duck couldn’t quite pinpoint.</p><p>To his surprise, before each of the kids hopped into their seats, all four of them gave him a big hug as they passed. Mumbling something into his chest as they did so.</p><p>It was a strange gesture, especially since it seemed to come out of nowhere, but Donald was never one to turn down family affection. Although he couldn’t help but wonder what could have brought such a reaction on, it wasn’t like he almost died on this adventure like he usually did.</p><p>The sailor shrugged, it was probably nothing to worry about. Maybe they were just in an affectionate mood today. Of course if he had looked a bit closer he would have noticed the dried tears on his kids’ cheeks.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>originally I was going to have stress and trauma and this chapter together but it ended up being way too long so I broke it in two.</p><p>Also I said Paperinik was going to die, but I didn't say Donald would</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. farewell to a hero</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Donald says goodbye to some old friends.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Hi huey!”</p><p>“Hey uncle Donald.” the oldest of the triplets replied. “Where are you headed off to?”</p><p>Donald hefted the stack of books in his arm. “New Quackmore institute, Scrooge decided to donate some of the books to the college after keeping all the spell books and treasure maps to himself. Della’s busy giving Launchpad flying lessons and Scrooge is in an all day meeting, so I’ll be driving over there by myself to drop them off. Not that I mind, it’s been so long since I’ve been to that school. It’ll be nice to see the place again.”</p><p>At first Huey was tempted to ask how his uncle could have possibly gone to the New Quackmore institute but bit his tongue, the duckling would likely find out soon enough from Donald’s old journal.</p><p>“So. We’ll be all alone today then?” Asked the red shirted duck</p><p>Donald nodded but then frowned. “You boys aren’t planning another scheme, are you?”</p><p>“What? No of course not, we’re just having a lazy day on the couch. Junior Woodchuck’s honor!”</p><p>‘While also reading through all the secrets you’ve kept hidden about your past.’ Huey thought to himself, no matter how much he enjoyed learning more about his uncle he couldn’t shake the feelings of guilt that came with invading his uncle’s privacy.</p><p>“Alright then. I’ll be back in a few hours, be good.” Said Donald, gently tussling Huey’s hair and plodding down the hallway.</p><p>Right as the sailor left, Huey made a mad dash for Webby’s room and rapidly knocked on the door when he arrived. The McDuck family’s number one fan answering shortly after.</p><p>“Donald’s going to New Quackmore, mom’s giving Launchpad flying lessons, and Scrooge is stuck in a meeting. We’ve got the mansion all to ourselves.” Explained Huey.</p><p>Webby smiled, knowing exactly what that meant. “Grab the others and meet me in the west living room. I’ll bring the journal.”</p><p>And so Huey did exactly that</p><p>The four of them met in the aforementioned room, Donald’s old journal clutched in Webby’s eager mitts as they all plopped down onto the couch.</p><p>“And now begins the next tale of the mysterious Donald Duck, having narrowly survived his encounter with the horrid General Zondag, he will now have to deal with the fallout of-” Webby’s dramatic monologue was abruptly interrupted by Dewey.</p><p>“Webby I’m all for showmanship, but can you get on with the story?! I’m already on the edge of my seat as it is!”</p><p>The female duck shrugged. “Fair enough. Now let’s see…”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Sound.</p><p>That was the first sense that returned to Donald as his consciousness faded back in, the shrill yet gentle beeps cutting through the darkness.</p><p>Then came smell, a pungent perfume scent clearly trying too hard to imitate freshly cut lemons burned in the duck’s nostrils.</p><p>After that was feeling, a softness below him let Donald know he was laying down on a bed of some kind and the dulled pain from his chest let him know that he was still very injured.</p><p>Finally his sight came in as he opened his eyes to nothing but a bright white light.</p><p>‘Am...am I dead?’ The duck questioned to himself before his hazy vision finally managed to clear up, revealing a white tile ceiling above him with fluorescent lights. ‘Not dead, just in a hospital...but why would I be in a- ’</p><p>The memories of the previous day finally began to flood back, the Evronian invasion, their assault on the flagship, his showdown with Zondag, and getting thrown face first into the ocean. Donald sat up in bed with a start, looking at his surroundings to try and gauge his situation.</p><p>He was in his own private room, no doubt paid for by Scrooge; sure the duck was stingy with his money, but when it came to protecting his family no price was too high. There wasn’t much in terms of decorations, just a television in the corner and a night stand with a vase of flowers and several ‘get well cards’ from his family. That gave him relief.</p><p>Donald’s first worry was that his secret identity as Paperinik had been exposed when they found his unconscious body, but seeing as there were absolutely no fan letters or gifts Donald could only assume that his double life was still secure.</p><p>As he looked over to his other side he was startled by the sight of Della sleeping in a chair right next to his bed, her snoring form mere inches from his own face.</p><p>‘Of course she’s here.’ Donald thought to himself. ‘I was out cold for god knows how long, she must have been worried sick about me.’</p><p>Donald was about to gently shake his twin awake, when a more mischievous idea came to him. A cheshire smile on his face, Donald plucked out one of the feathers from the top of his head and gently began to tickle it against Della’s beak. The female duck squirming in response, trying to bat away the offending feather.</p><p>Donald simply dodged around her lazy swings and continued tickling her nostrils, until finally she let out a loud and decidedly unlady like sneeze that snapped her out of her slumber.</p><p>“Alright bobbie, that might have been funny the first few times but it’s getting…” Della froze when she saw that it wasn’t ‘bobbie’ tickling her but her own brother who was now wide awake.</p><p>“Hey Dumbella.”</p><p>Della lunged towards her brother and tackled him into a massive bear hug, the force shoving the entire bed to the side which then hit the nightstand and sent the vase tumbling to the floor where it shattered upon impact.</p><p>“YOU’RE BACK! YOU’RE BACK, YOU’RE BACK, YOU’RE BACK!!!” Della raved, squeezing her brother so tightly he actually began to wince in pain.</p><p>That’s when Donald heard footsteps approaching the room. “I swear if you broke another window Della I’m gonna- oh my lord.”</p><p>Della finally released her brother from the hug, allowing him to look over to see a rather heavyset, parrot nurse standing in the doorway.</p><p>“Bobbie! He’s finally awake!”</p><p>“He’s awake!” Bobbie replied.</p><p>“Yeah. Of course I’m awake, why wouldn’t I be?”</p><p>“They- they found you in the rubble of the destroyed financial district.” Della said with tears of relief coming out of her eyes. “The doctors said it was a miracle you were still alive!”</p><p>The female duck then brought Donald into another, far gentler hug. “Don’t ever run off like that again. You hear me?”</p><p>Donald smiled and returned the hug, ignoring the soreness in his chest, just enjoying the moment. Of course it couldn’t last very long as something suddenly occurred to him..</p><p>“Wait a minute, how long have I been out?”</p><p>Della froze and let go of Donald, suddenly finding the ceiling to be very interesting.</p><p>“della...How. Long?”</p><p>“Two weeks.” Bobbie said, checking Donald’s heart rate.</p><p>The male duck’s head spun around so fast you would have thought it would have come flying off his neck. “WHAT?! No!”</p><p>Donald looked towards his sister in disbelief, asking for reassurance only for her to solemnly nod and confirm what the nurse just said.</p><p>“No. No. No!” Donald’s breathing picked up as he started to get out of bed in a panic, only for Bobbie and Della to force him back down.</p><p>“You want me to call Dr.Lumpkins?”</p><p>“Oh please, I think I can take care of my brother when he gets scared.” Della replied. “Besides, do you really want to call him at midnight on a sunday?”</p><p>Donald blinked and looked back towards his sister. “Wait, why are you here at midnight on a sunday?”</p><p>Della paused. “Ummm.”</p><p>“She’s always here.” Explained Bobbie.</p><p>“Well not always…”</p><p>Donald then looked towards a spot in the room he had missed: a small cot with a bedspread sat there, an unpacked suitcase sitting under it with several of Della’s signature aviator jackets spilling out of it along with several comic books. It seemed as though she had really wanted to be there when he woke up.</p><p>It was actually kind of touching that Della had stayed right by his side the entire time and was clearly prepared for the long haul.</p><p>Finally calming down, Donald’s head hit the pillow and Della sat back down on the chair next to his bed, grabbing a hold of his hand in her own.</p><p>“Well I’ll leave you two alone for a bit, maybe see if there’s anything I can get your brother to eat. He must be starving.” The grumble that came out of Donald’s stomach agreed with that statement.</p><p>As the nurse left the room, Donald took in a deep breath and turned back to face Della. “So...what did I miss while I was out? What happened to the evronians? What about Paperinik?”</p><p>An expression of sadness instantly came across the pilot’s face when Donald mentioned the superhero’s name, drumming her fingers against the side of the bed and Donald’s palm. Della sucked in a breath as if to calm her nerves and finally spoke.</p><p>“Paperinik is….he’s dead Donnie.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>
  <b>
    <br/>
    <span class="u">Two weeks earlier, moments after the death of Zondag.</span>
    <br/>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <em>Della’s head snapped over to the side when she heard the explosion, just in time to see the flaming wreck of the Evronian flagship crash into the harbor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The effect upon the remaining alien forces was immediate, their communicators blaring the message that general Zondag had been killed, the soldiers immediately panicked and broke formation; some arguing over who would be the new leader while others fled like rats from a sinking ship. Making it easy for Scrooge and the others to break through their ranks and take them down, forcing the creatures to retreat.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Della couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the monsters running for the hills, their arms flailing about as the time travelers quickly advanced upon them. Deciding that evacuation was a moot point now that the threat was on the run, Della swooped down to join in on the fun and crack some skulls.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>By the end of the day, they had managed to capture two-thirds of the remaining invading force while the rest had fled to the stars. Likely never to return after being dealt such a crushing blow.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops, despite their victory nobody had seen or heard anything from Paperinik since he had gone in the flagship. They had assumed he would have joined in on the fighting in the city after defeating Zondag but he never did, in fact any attempts at contacting him through the usual methods had failed. Red Raider had said they had gotten separated during their assault and had no clue as to what had happened to him, he had assumed that he found away off the crashing ship after he blew the engines.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This led to a few search parties being formed to try and find any trace of the hero, most of them traveling to the flagship’s crash site but a few others broke off to search the city.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was Urk who emerged from the water with news of the hero’s final fate, but the moment he reached the beach Della immediately wished that she hadn’t found out at all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With a forlorn expression on his face, the massive duck held out the shredded, burned, and waterlogged remains of a very familiar costume in his huge hand.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“This...this was all that was left.” Urk stuttered out. “He’s...he’s gone.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Everyone’s jaw nearly hit the sand right then and there, they couldn’t believe it. Paperinik, the guardian of Duckburg and defender of earth….was dead?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“NO!” Xadhoom growled and flew right up into Urk’s face. “He can’t be gone! Paperinik is one of the strongest individuals I’ve ever met! He can’t die! Not at the hands of the Evronians, are you sure you looked everywhere?!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Xadhoom.” Urk said as he put a hand on the scrawny alien’s shoulder. “He’s gone. Nobody could have survived a crash like that, not even him.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t know that! Maybe he escaped at the last minute! Maybe he swam back to the shore and is resting somewhere! He...he can’t die…he just can’t…”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Xadhoom may have been able to lie to a lot of people, but she couldn’t lie to herself, not with the proof sitting right in front of her. The living supernova sunk to her knees and started bawling her eyes out, clearly broken over the loss of one of her dearest friends. Urk responded by scooping her up in his arm and cradling her like one would an infant child, the alien grabbing ahold of his broad chest and crying into it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The rest of the crowd wasn’t doing too well either. Scrooge had pulled off his hat and held it against his chest in a show of respect for the fallen hero; Red Raider bowed his head and took a knee, muttering what sounded like a prayer under his breath before vanishing in a flash of light; Lyla Lay just stood there in shock, her eyes running over the ruined costume in disbelief; the rest of the party was stuck in a mixture of disbelief and wailing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And Della? She was utterly crushed, she had thought Paperinik to be invincible, a man larger than life itself who could do anything and beat anyone through sheer determination. Now the illusion was shattered, revealing that despite all of his abilities the Duck Avenger was still a mortal man beneath that mask; likely one with friends and family that would have to mourn him. It was too much for Della, who walked over to the destroyed costume, picked it up, and proceeded to cry into the ruined fabric.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Word spread fast around the city that Paperinik had given his life for the protection of earth and soon enough everyone was mourning the fallen hero. Even Angus Fangus, who had it out for the Duck Avenger since he had moved to Duckburg, cried over the hero’s death. Everywhere you looked people were putting up pictures of him and flying his ‘PK’ symbol over buildings, many people even dressed up like their hero to honor him; one street artist painted an entire mural of Paperinik across one of the main street buildings that hadn’t been destroyed in the invasion and the police didn’t even bother having it taken down. It was as if the entirety of Duckburg had lost a close friend.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The mayor held a funeral about a week after Paperinik was declared dead, there was no body to bury so they had to settle for a symbolic coffin at the grave site. Almost the entire city attended and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as Paperinik was laid to rest in the ground. His tombstone reading ‘Here lies paperinik, a true hero and friend to us all. May he find peace in the next life’</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The very next day, in the midst of the rebuilding efforts some of the community leaders pooled their funds together to have a statue of Paperinik erected in one of the public parks as a tribute to his sacrifice which was approved the moment it hit the mayor’s desk.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The day after that, Della and Scrooge got a call from the hospital that they had found Donald amongst the wreckage of Duckburg and he was in critical condition. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She had never seen Scrooge drive so quickly through downtown, she was scared that he was going to crash into a light pole at any moment but she didn’t care, Donald needed them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Della would never forget the storm Scrooge cooked up when he marched into the hospital, out right demanding that he be allowed to see his nephew. The staff quickly obliged him and showed him to Donald’s room, the young duck fully comatose and hooked up to several machines. The doctor said they found him with three fractured ribs, four broken, a torn shoulder muscle, and a fractured skull; while the damage was extensive, all of the injuries were expected to fully heal, the coma on the other hand was a different story. There was no telling when Donald would wake up, if at all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Once they had heard the doctor’s diagnosis, a few things happened: Scrooge ordered that Donald be moved into a private room, even writing a check on the spot to cover any of the costs, and then made a few calls to family members about the situation; Della swung back by the manor, grabbed her essentials, and essentially moved into Donald’s room. She needed to be there when he woke up again, no matter how long she had to wait, she was going to stay as long as it took.</em>
</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>
  <b>
    <br/>
    <span class="u">Now</span>
    <br/>
  </b>
</p><p>“And I’ve been waiting here ever since then.” Said Della, finishing up her tale.</p><p>Donald just lied there, gaze focused downwards, it was a lot to take in after all; the fact that he was in a two week coma only to wake up to the knowledge that his alter ego had been declared dead, a sacrifice in the battle against the Evronians.</p><p>At first he wanted to just come out and reveal that he was paperinik, pick back up where he left off as Duckburg’s defender. But then he realized where that had gotten him: he had driven his family sick with worry, gotten consumed by his own self-loathing, and nearly gotten himself killed in a battle with his arch enemy. As good as it felt to be a superhero, it was clear to Donald that he had reached his limit and could no longer live up to the expectations of being the Duck Avenger.</p><p>So instead, he decided right then and there that Paperinik would stay dead to the world, at least for the time being. Maybe one day he’d pick back up the cowl, but that day seemed like a long day off. For now, he just wanted to go back to being good old Donald duck; no time travel, no aliens, no rockabilly gang members, just normal adventures with him and his family.</p><p>“I’m sorry Della. It...It must have been hard to lose your hero like that.” Donald said.</p><p>Della nodded. “It was, I still can’t believe that after everything he’s survived he went out like this. But at least you’re still with us and that’s what really matters.”</p><p>Donald smiled, it was nice to know Della cared. “So how long until I get out of here?”</p><p>“Well the doctor said that your ribs still need some more time to heal but since you can breath on your own you’re free to leave whenever you want, you’ll probably have to take it easy for awhile while you’re recovering.” Said Della. “It stinks that we’ll have to take a break from adventuring, but you’re more important.”</p><p>“Okay then.” Donald helped himself out of bed, only to immediately collapse to the floor under his own weight.</p><p>“Oh right, muscle atrophy. I forgot about that….”</p><p>“A little help please?” Donald moaned from the floor.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>And so life went on for Donald Fauntleroy Duck. The only difference was that he was now free of the burdens and responsibilities that came with being a superhero and you know what? He was okay with that.</p><p>After about a week of physical therapy and a prescription of pain medication, Donald was out of the hospital and practically good as new. His chest was still a bit tender but he’d get better eventually.</p><p>The experience only strengthened his resolve to cut all ties with his superhero life altogether, the last thing he needed was getting pulled back into that world again. Paperinik was gone, it was only Donald Duck now. Which is why a day after getting out of the hospital, he made a trip to Ducklair tower to say his goodbyes.</p><p>After greeting the receptionist like he usually did, Donald rode the elevator straight up to the secret floor where ONE resided. The AI was both surprised and relieved that he was still alive.</p><p><b>“Donald?! You’re alive?! How did you escape the crashing ship?”</b> One exclaimed.</p><p>“After Zondag committed suicide with a grenade, the explosion blasted me straight out of the ship into the water. I managed to get washed back on shore before passing out, I’ve been in a coma for the past few weeks.” Explained the duck.</p><p><b>“Talk about luck.”</b> The AI remarked. <b>“Well now that you’re back I assume you’ll want to resume your activities as Paperinik? I made you a brand new costume just in case you returned.”</b></p><p>Donald nervously rubbed the back of his head. “About that… I don’t think I want to go back to being Paperinik.”</p><p>
  <b>“Pardon?”</b>
</p><p>“Look, I had a great run as a superhero and got a lot of great memories out of it ONE along with tons of friends. But after everything that’s happened recently I just can’t do it anymore.</p><p>ONE began to sputter. <b>“You’re just going to walk away?”</b></p><p>“I can’t handle the stress that comes with being Paperinik ONE, the hero life pushed me to the brink and I almost fell into the abyss, I mean I was in a two week coma because of it and had my family worried sick.” Explained Donald. “It was turning me into the kind of person I didn’t want to be, so for my own sake Paperinik has to remain dead to the world.”</p><p>
  <b>“I suppose with the Evronians defeated, St Canard's villains abandoning the city ruins, and the time anomalies all but ceased. Duckburg doesn’t need Paperinik anymore…”</b>
</p><p>Donald nodded in agreement. “I just came to say goodbye ONE. You deserved that much after all we’ve been through together. Maybe someday I’ll pick up the cowl again and be the hero the world needs, but I clearly need to work out a lot of my own personal issues before then.”</p><p><b>“I understand….you know, it’s funny.”</b> ONE sadly chuckled. <b>“Everette Ducklair said something a lot like that when he left to find himself in the world. In any case, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, wherever they may lead you. Goodbye old friend.”</b></p><p>“Goodbye ONE, it’s been fun.”</p><p>With that Donald stepped back into the elevator, and left the secret floor of Ducklair tower for the last time.</p><p>‘Now comes the easy part.’ Donald thought to himself as he got off on the floor that housed channel 00s network. ‘Turning in my keys to the tower.’</p><p>The news network itself was of course, busier than it’s ever been. Between the alien invasion and the rebuilding of Duckburg there was an awful lot for these guys to talk about, they had so much material to print they didn’t even know what to do with it all.</p><p>Which is why none of them even gave Donald so much as a passing glance as they rushed back and forth across the office.</p><p>Except for Angus Fangus, who was sitting down at his desk, head hung low. A rare sight for the normally overzealous reporter always chasing the next big story.</p><p>That got Donald’s curiosity. “Hey there Fangus.”</p><p>The aged kiwi bird looked up at Donald and frowned. “Oh..it’s you, well go ahead, say it.”</p><p>“Say what?” Donald questioned.</p><p>“Say how wrong I was.”</p><p>Donald pulled up a chair and sat in front of the reporter. “About what?”</p><p>“Everything!” Angus exclaimed. “Since the day I got here I had it out for that hero, Paperinik. I poked him, called him names, tried to blame him for...well anything I could possibly tie him to. Because it sold papers, because it brought in viewers, and because I thought it was funny. But when those alien freaks invaded? Those same freaks that I thought were allied with Paperinik? You know what I saw out there? I saw a man, no, a hero, rally an army together to fight back against those aliens; a hero that charged forwards into danger while the rest of us were running away; a hero that...that gave his life to save all of us. I see that now and I’ve never felt more ashamed of myself for ever thinking he was a criminal. I just wish that I could tell him that now and apologize for everything I’ve said about him...but I can’t and I’ll be carrying that for a while.”</p><p>“You know what?” Donald said, putting a comforting arm onto the kiwi’s shoulder. “In a weird way, I think he knows. Maybe looking down from whatever cloud he ended up on, he knows.”</p><p>Angus chuckled. “Maybe he does…”</p><p>“Anyways, is Lyla here? I just wanted to say goodbye to her before I turn in my keys and leave for good.” said Donald. “After everything that’s happened, I need a change of scenery.”</p><p>“Sorry pal, but you just missed her. Went out for a much needed coffee run, we’ve been working around the clock to cover the rebuilding efforts around here.”</p><p>Donald let out a small breath of relief, somewhat glad he didn’t have to face Lyla. It was hard enough saying goodbye to one friend, he wasn’t sure he could handle breaking it off with another.</p><p>After handing in his notice of resignation and his keys, Donald made his way out of the building with a bit more pep in his step. Like a massive burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders and he was finally free to do as he pleased. Unfortunately that feeling went away the moment he took a step out of the building.</p><p>“So that’s it, huh?”</p><p>Donald groaned, of course he ran into her, figured with his luck. He turned to see Lyla Lay holding a tray of steaming coffee in her hands, not looking too pleased to see the young duck. She didn’t have to explain what she meant, Donald knew perfectly well what she was getting at.</p><p>“Yep. That’s it, I’ve given up the cape for good.” Replied Donald. “Don’t try and talk me out of it. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.”</p><p>“I know. This is how things are supposed to play out, everything’s right with the timeline.” Explained the android. “In fact, if you have any doubts, don’t worry; after the death of general Zondag things calm down a lot in Duckburg and the rest of the universe.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Yep. Your sacrifice not only sent the Evronian empire into a panic after their first lost in centuries, but it also inspired several other uprisings across the universe that hastened their decline; in no small part to Xadhoom’s intervention.”</p><p>Donald raised his eyebrows, he really had that much of an impact? “Speaking of, what happened to the others? Xadhoom, Red Raider, and Urk?”</p><p>“Well Urk finally managed to find a way back to his home dimension, Xadhoom followed the fleeing evronians into space to finish them off with major success so far, and Red Rider finally turned on the organization and has retired from the thief’s life to raise his son properly. Everyone’s fine.” Lyla explained, counting off each individual on one hand.</p><p>“That’s comforting.” The former hero replied. “I’m glad everything worked out.”</p><p>Lyla sadly nodded. “Still, I will miss working alongside you, Paper- I mean Donald. We’ve been through so much after all.”</p><p>“Likewise.” Donald said, giving Lyla a hug. “But we’ll always have the memories we shared.”</p><p>Lyla returned the hug in earnest, giving Donald a peck on his cheek in the process; causing the poor duck’s face to go red. “Well goodbye Donald, it’s been fun.”</p><p>On that note, Lyla Lay walked through the doors of Ducklair tower, and if one looked closely you could spot the slight tears coming out of her eyes as she did so. Donald noticed but paid it no mind, he already burned that bridge, no sense in going back now.</p><p>The era of Paperinik was over, it was time to move on.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Unfortunately, Donald wasn’t content with his new way of life for very long.</p><p>Sure, giving up his superhero identity meant he could finally catch up on some much needed sleep and he didn’t have to subject himself to the stress of risking his life every night. This in turn let him start healing properly both physically and mentally from said life, making him feel like his old self again. He was finally getting better.</p><p>The problem was that everything felt too small, too boring, his world had seemed to have shrunk considerably and he was going stir crazy because of it. Going from time travel and aliens to spending the majority of his time cooped up in the mansion was sort of a shock to his system, the fact that Scrooge and Della were being a tad overprotective of him certainly wasn’t helping the situation either.</p><p>It was painfully obvious that all the emotional instability he went through, followed by disappearing the day the Evronians invaded, and landing in the hospital for a two week coma had scared the daylights out of the two of them and now they were treating him like he was a porcelain doll that could break his neck on a fern.</p><p>Sure that meant he got a break from adventures for a while and could actually relax for a change, but with Della, Scrooge, or Duckworth keeping a near constant eye on him, frequently asking him if he was feeling okay and if he needed anything; virtually stalking him throughout the mansion was starting to grate on him very quickly. He could understand where they were coming from, he was in a coma after all, but that didn’t change the fact that it almost felt like they were smothering him. Is it too much to ask for things to just go back to normal? The last thing he wanted was for them to start pitying him.</p><p>He knew he didn’t want to go back to being Paperinik again, but he also knew that what he had now just wasn’t working for him.</p><p>Donald needed a change of scenery, to get away from duckburg for a while and be on his own, and he knew just the place to do it.</p><p>A month or two before his high school graduation, Donald made his way to the US navy recruitment office and registered to become a sailor; effective right after he got his high school diploma. He knew that his family would never approve of this decision, Della would probably argue that he needed to stay until she was blue in the face but Donald didn’t care. He couldn’t get what he needed in Duckburg, it was time for him to leave the nest and start a new chapter in his life.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Oh right. Uncle Donald joined the Navy right out of high school.” Louie said, only to receive a few confused looked from the others. “What? I pay attention to his stories sometimes.”</p><p>“Now that you bring it up, I don’t think Donald ever told us about his time in the navy. Sure he mentioned the cities he visited but he never really talked about his time as a sailor.” Huey remarked.</p><p>“What? Sure he did!” Dewey exclaimed. “Like when he...No that wasn’t the Navy, well how about….no that was us.….huh, you’re right he hasn’t said anything about it. I wonder why?”</p><p>Before the kids could ponder it any further, the sound of the sunchaser/cloudslayer (Della and Launchpad still argued over the name) landing out front signaled that it was time to end their reading session.</p><p>If the quartet thought that Donald’s secrets ended with his vigilante life, they were sorely mistaken</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And thus concludes the Paperinik arc once and for all, next up Donald heads out to sea and ends up being acquainted with some new friends; friends that we are quite familiar with.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Donald the sailor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>and so Donald Duck begins his career in the navy and quickly makes some new friends.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It was another night for the duck triplets and Webby, as usual they were partaking in their newly found hobby: digging through their uncle Donald’s mysterious past.</p><p>“Another night another chapter.” Said Dewey, taking a seat on the lowest bunk of his brother’s triple decker bunk bed. “What do you think he did in the navy? Fight sea monsters? Maybe zombie pirates?”</p><p>“Well, whatever it was it was completely covered up.” Said Webby. “I did a bit of digging around yesterday and I couldn’t find any history of Donald’s military career. His service record shows him getting registered and getting honorably discharged but there’s a huge missing gap where his rank and missions should be.”</p><p>“Which means there was a cover up, but why?” Asked Huey. “Also how exactly did you find Donald’s service record?”</p><p>Webby shrugged. “He kept a copy of it in a filing cabinet on his houseboat.”</p><p>“That makes sense.”</p><p>“Can we just get to the story already?” Louie remarked. “The sooner we read it the sooner we find out what Donald’s been hiding.”</p><p>Nodding in agreement, Webby opened up the journal once more and wove the tale of Donald’s life on the seas.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*******************</p>
</div><p>“YOU’RE WHAT?!” Della shouted, loud enough that all of Duckburg could hear the pilot.</p><p>Donald dug a finger into his ringing ear, trying to recover from having one of his eardrums darn near blown out from his sister’s exclamation. “I said I’m leaving for the navy tomorrow, I already passed all the physicals and exams a few weeks ago.”</p><p>He probably should have told them about this BEFORE graduation but it never really came up in the conversation. Then Della might have not been taking this so hard, aw who was he kidding? Della probably would have reacted the exact same way regardless.</p><p>In the days leading up to them finishing high school Della just kept going on and on about how great their lives were going to be once they graduated, how they’d finally be able to adventure with Scrooge full time without school getting in the way. She seemed so excited at the prospect of traveling the world with her uncle and her brother right by her side, solving mysteries and rewriting history.</p><p>And now the pilot finds out that her brother has gone and joined up with the Navy without telling her, shattering that picturesque fantasy she had constructed for herself.</p><p>“B-but you can’t leave! We-we’re a team!” Della stuttered, grabbing a hold of Donald’s arm. “I’m brawn and you’re...also brawn.”</p><p>Donald frowned. “Really not helping your case Dumbella. Besides you might as well save your breath, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile now and my mind is completely made up; there’s nothing you can say or do that will get me to stay.”</p><p>Della seemed to accept this fact for a moment, before the fire in her eyes glinted as something seemed to click in her head. “Maybe not me...UNCLE SCROOGE! UNCLE SCROOGE!”</p><p>The female half of the duck twins quickly rushed out of the room to tattle on Donald, forcing him to chase after his sister. “Get back here you snitch!”</p><p>What followed next was an utterly hilarious chase scene where Della ran from room to room in search of her uncle while throwing everything and the kitchen sink in her brother’s path to slow him down, no doubt unleashing several ancient evils in the process but that was a problem for another day, resulting in several instances of slapstick comedy between the two. This chase culminated with Donald tacking his sister down the main staircase in the foyer, the twins landing in a heap at the foot of the stairs, wrestling one another.</p><p>“What in the blue-blazes is going on here?!” Scrooge shouted as he pulled the two ducks apart.</p><p>“Donald’s running away from home!” Della accused.</p><p>“I’m an adult! I’m not running away!” Donald shot back.</p><p>“Yes you are! You’re leaving us so you can stay on some dinky old ship!”</p><p>Scrooge could only sigh at their bickering. “Is this about Donald joining the navy?”</p><p>The two twins then looked at Scrooge in shock and exclaimed in perfect unison. “You knew?!”</p><p>“Of course I did. Donald’s recruitment letter came in the mail last week, you have to get up pretty early to keep something from Scrooge McDuck.”</p><p>Donald rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut, Scrooge didn’t need to know his nephew pulled the wool over his eyes for two whole years.</p><p>“Besides I think it’s a great idea.” The billionaire continued.</p><p>“What?!” Della sputtered.</p><p>“Nothing wrong with joining the military, I was a private in the army during world war one ; worked my way up to commander and made plenty of good friends fighting in the trenches of europe. Being in the armed forces is a great experience.”</p><p>Donald smiled, it was nice to have his uncle take his side for once.</p><p>“That being said, we both know that the lad could use a bit more discipline. A few years at sea could whip Donald into shape, maybe do something for that temper of his.”</p><p>Okay now he was somewhat offended, but still grateful that Scrooge was defending his decision.</p><p>“But what about our adventures? All the plans we made together? Like finding the kingdom of the crystal skull, one eyed willy’s pirate horde, or maui’s mystical fish hook?” Della said, grasping at the straws. “We can’t do them without Donald!”</p><p>“Sure we can! We’ve gotten off just fine without him before we can do it now...uh, no offense lad.” Scrooge replied.</p><p>Donald shrugged. “None taken.”</p><p>“And even if we couldn’t, Donald’s a man now. He’s old enough to make his own choices in life now. If he wants to go and be a sailor, let him, it’s his decision and we need to respect it.” Scrooge explained. “Besides, I already made reservations for a surprise farewell dinner for him and I am not about to pay the cancelation fee because you can’t let your brother leave the nest Della.”</p><p>Della hung her head in defeat, storming off in a huff, clearly upset that she lost what little leverage she might have had in her efforts to get Donald to stay.</p><p>But as she left, Scrooge turned to face his nephew with a rather serious expression. “I have to ask though, why are you joining the navy? You’re not trying to get away from us are you? I know we’ve been a bit over protective since the invasion but we-”</p><p>“Scrooge.” said Donald, cutting off the billionaire with a wave of his hand. “That’s not it. I just need to be away from Duckburg, away from the adventuring life and all that comes with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love you guys and sometimes I do have fun on the adventures when I’m not getting shrunken down, baked into a cookie, or having some other weird misfortune happen to me; but lately I just feel like I need a break from it all, to go out on my own and try to figure out some things, maybe find out more about myself. And I can’t do any of that here in Duckburg.”</p><p>“I understand lad. Sometimes you need to go out into the world to really get in touch with yourself, it’s how I became smarter than the smarties, tougher than the toughies, and sharper than the sharpies. ” Scrooge said. “A good old fashioned soul search is just what you need right now.”</p><p>“Thanks uncle Scrooge.” Donald replied, giving his uncle a firm hug which the older duck quickly returned.</p><p>“Now go clean up. Our reservation at the Rising Avenue Ristorante.”</p><p>Donald’s eyebrows jumped onto his forehead. “Rising Avenue Ristorante?! That’s the most expensive restaurant in Duckburg! You’re really taking us there?!”</p><p>“It was a special occasion, I thought I might as well splurge a little before you left.”</p><p>“Okay who are you and what have you done with my uncle Scrooge?”</p><p>Scrooge laughed. “Just go get ready, I’ll make sure Della does the same.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*******************</p>
</div><p>The night came and went and an attempted robbery by the beagle boys at the Rising Avenue Ristorante broke up what would have been a quiet farewell dinner, at least they got their meal for free after stopping the would be thugs from emptying the place out of all it’s valuables. Now Donald was at the Duckburg harbor, saying his final goodbyes to his family. Along with at least half a dozen other sailors who were doing the same thing.</p><p>Of course Della had to drag it out as long as she possibly could, keeping him in a firm vice-like hug far longer than was reasonable even for a goodbye of this magnitude.</p><p>“Alright Lass that’s enough.” Scrooge said, trying to pry Della off of her twin brother. “You’ve been hugging Donald for the past hour now.”</p><p>“I can’t help it! I’m not gonna see him for another two years! This is the last chance I’m gonna get to hug him for a while!”</p><p>A foghorn cut through the air, finally forcing Della to release Donald from her hug as the other recruits made their way down the docks.</p><p>“Well that’s my cue.” Donald remarked, hooking his duffle bag over his shoulder. “I’d better get going, don’t want to be late on my first day.”</p><p>“See ya round lad! We’ll miss ya!” Scrooge said, waving his nephew goodbye.</p><p>“Be sure to write!” Della added, giving her brother a similar wave as he walked towards the dinghy meant to carry him to the ship.</p><p>Sadly, in his classic misfortune fashion, when he tossed his duffle bag onto the small craft, it ended up catching on his shoulder and he was sent flying off the dock with it. Donald ended up knocking over two other guys on the boat and all three of them ended up in a heap, getting a laugh out of the guy steering the whole thing.</p><p>The glares they shot him as they sailed out made Donald wish that he could shrink down into his seat right then and there, less than an hour in the navy and he’d already managed to bungle something up. But he wasn’t going to let that keep him down, he was Donald Duck, he always managed to find a way to bounce back from misfortune no matter how many times it struck him.</p><p>Soon enough, Donald was hauled aboard the much larger battleship where he made his way over to the new recruits who were all standing in rank, at attention. Donald quickly fell into line and stood at the ready as the captain approached. He was an elderly dog that looked old enough to be Donald’s grandfather, grey scruff on his chin and a pipe clenched between his teeth in a firm frown.</p><p>“At ease recruits.” the gruff sea dog said. “Now then, my name is captain nemo and let me be the first to welcome you all to the USS interceptor. If you’re here then I can only assume that you were all at least competent enough to pass basic training, but don’t think that means you can relax. The navy isn’t all fun and games like in the movies, I run a tight ship around here and I expect the rest of you to work hard to keep it that way, do I make myself clear?”</p><p>“Yes sir!” The crowd replied</p><p>“Good. Good, now then the rest of my men will show you all to your quarters for the time being. You’ll all get tonight off to settle in but you had all be ready to get up at o-six-hundred hours tomorrow, you’ll be assigned your various chores and tasks then. Understood?”</p><p>“Yes sir!”</p><p>“Great, dismissed.” With that Nemo walked off, only for a lanky pelican to take his place.</p><p>“Right this way men.”</p><p>Donald and the others were led deeper into the bowls of the battleship and Donald was pleasantly surprised to see that the lower decks were far more spacious than he had initially anticipated; even the tallest members of their group avoided hitting their heads on the doorways. There was a mess hall, an exercise room, and many other recreational areas that one wouldn’t expect to be on a ship.</p><p>Eventually they reached the crew cabins and the pelican started listing off various names for each cabin, paring the sailors off one by one and slowly thinning out the crowd until Donald was the only one left.</p><p>“And Donald Fauntleroy Duck, you’ll be bunking with….” The pelican trailed off. “Oh boy.”</p><p>“What?” Donald asked, clearly confused. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Well your cabinmates arrived two months back and they’ve gotten a sort of...reputation, around here.”</p><p>Donald narrowed his eyes. “What kind of reputation?”</p><p>“Let’s just say they can be a bit excitable and clumsy. I’ll let them handle the introductions, they’d never forgive me if I didn’t.” the pelican placed a hand on Donald’s shoulder. “Good luck pal.”</p><p>The pelican walked off and left Donald alone, standing in front of a door that just became several times more foreboding than before. Knowing that he couldn’t just sleep in the hallway, Donald decided to bite the bullet and meet his ‘infamous’ roommates.</p><p>‘I shared a room with Della Duck for most of my life, if I could handle that I can handle whoever’s behind that door.’ Donald mentally reassured himself. ‘How bad could they possibly be?’</p><p>Grabbing a hold of the door handle, Donald pushed his way into the cabin which was a small little room with two sets of bunk beds each with their own night stand and a closet to his right. When he looked at the bottom bunks Donald was met with the sight of two individuals: the one on the right was a black furred mouse with a peach colored face, about Donald’s height with a similar build to match, and two large ears sitting on top of his head like a weird black hat and a pair of white gloves on his hands; the one on the left was a much taller and lankier dog with a long muzzle that had two buck teeth jutting out of it and two floppy ears hanging off of his head, along with feet that would be better suited for a circus clown and another pair of white gloves on his hands.</p><p>The dog was the first one to notice the newcomer. “Hey, Mickey! Look! We got a new roomie!”</p><p>He stood up to meet Donald only to end up smacking his head on the upper bunk, causing him to fall back down into a sitting position and grab the lump on his head that was quickly forming. The mouse quickly rushed over to check on his friend.</p><p>“Whoa there Goof. Ya alright?” The mouse asked.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay, I’ve gotta stop forgetting to duck when I get up.” The dog replied before standing up, without hitting his head this time, and walking over to Donald.</p><p>“Put er’ there pal!” The dog exclaimed, jutting out a hand towards Donald. “The name’s goofy. Nice to meet ya!”</p><p>Donald took Goofy’s hand in his own, only to be immediately brought into an extremely firm and enthusiastic handshake that left his entire body shaking for a short time afterwards.</p><p>The mouse then brought Donald into another, far gentler handshake. “And I’m Mickey Mouse, what’s your name?”</p><p>“Donald Duck.” the new sailor replied, throwing his bag onto one of the top bunks.</p><p>“Well Donald it’s nice to meet you! I always love making new friends.” Mickey exclaimed before pulling the duck in a sitting position next to him. “So tell me a bit more about yourself.”</p><p>“I signed up for the Navy a few months back and got on the ship a few hours ago. It hasn’t been too bad, everyone around here seems alright.” Donald replied</p><p>“That’s nice and all Donald but that tells us zip about ya.” Said Goofy, taking a seat on the other side of the duck and effectively trapping him. “Come on, give us the scoop: Where are ya from? Any hopes and dreams? You like baseball? Go to the opera house? Ever won a sack race? Boxers or briefs? When’s the wedding? You know, that sort of thing!”</p><p>With every question the two goofballs leaned in further and further, invading Donald’s personal space more and more until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and shoved the two of them aside.</p><p>“Actually you know what? I’ve had a busy morning packing up, I think I’m just going to sleep for a little while.” Donald said rather gruffly, hosting himself onto the top bunk and turning away from the duo, pretending to shut his eyes.</p><p>“But Donald-” Goofy started only to be interrupted by Mickey.</p><p>“Now Goofy, I’m sure our new roommate just needs time to adjust to new surroundings. Remember how we were when we first got aboard the interceptor.” Mickey explained. “Let’s just give him some time, I’m sure he’ll come around. Besides, I believe you and Oswald have a score to settle on the old ping pong table?”</p><p>The two sailors quickly trotted out of the room, Goofy excitedly talking about how he was definitely going to break his twenty game losing streak against Oswald today, leaving Donald alone with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.</p><p>Donald rubbed his eyes in frustration. Just his luck, he’s been here less than a day and he’s already stuck with two overly excitable idiots for roommates; it was basically Della times two, only somehow worse.</p><p>‘Maybe it was a mistake to join the navy.’ Donald thought as he drifted off to slumber for real.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*******************</p>
</div><p>“Mickey Mouse?” Webby said “where have I heard that name before?”</p><p>Dewey chuckled. “Uh Steamboat Willie? Touchdown Mickey? The Gallopin’ Gaucho? And pretty much every good movie ever made?”</p><p>That’s when it clicked with Webby. “Wait, Donald is friends with that Mickey Mouse?! The Oscar winning actor?!”</p><p>“Yep.” Louie replied. “Honestly it’s not really something we like to flaunt, brings in all the wrong kind of attention.”</p><p>“Tell me about it. Remember that crazy fan who tried to take Dewey hostage when he found out that we knew Mickey?” Added Huey. “I still remember how Uncle Donald knocked him out in one punch.”</p><p>“Still it’s nice that he invites us to his yearly Christmas party in Hollywood.”</p><p>Webby’s jaw was almost unhinged, only for Huey to gently snap it closed again.</p><p>“Webby, as much as we’d love to tell you about the mistletoe incident. We’re here to talk about uncle Donald.”</p><p>Webby shook of her stupor, they were right, it was a story for another day. She turned back to the book and continued the tale.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*******************</p>
</div><p>Thankfully for our favorite duck, joining up with the navy turned out to be the greatest decision he had ever made in his entire life.</p><p>It was a bit of an adjustment, living at sea. But once Donald got into the groove of things he found that he loved it.</p><p>True the work wasn’t particularly glamorous, it was mostly swabbing decks, washing dishes, and occasionally playing lookout. Donald used to be in charge of food preparation too but after the pudding incident, he was no longer allowed near the kitchen. The ship saw almost no action at all. But it was steady, it was stable, and most of all it was safe.</p><p>His life finally had structure, no longer was he being thrown head first into deadly adventures, no more getting shot at or getting caught up in life threatening booby traps. Compared to Donald’s usual fare of chaos and bodily harm, this almost felt like a cruise ship.</p><p>Even his temper started to get better while at sea. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was just something about the deep blue, the way the sunlight shimmered off the waves and the sounds of the water gently lapping against the boat that had a pacifying effect on him. Granted Donald still lost his temper from time to time, he was part of the Duck family after all, that was something he’d never be able to shake for as long as he lived; but he was starting to gain more control over it. The cases of misfortune that plagued him seemed smaller and less significant, like they were nothing but minor inconveniences that weren’t worth losing his head over, and he was able to calm himself down easier.</p><p>And his roommates Mickey and Goofy? Like barnacles on the side of the ship, the silly duo began to grow on him. Not the best metaphor for describing what he would now consider to be his best friends aboard the interceptor but that’s beside the point.</p><p>At first he saw them as nothing more than a pair of nuisances, minor annoyances that he just had to bite his tongue and deal with seeing as nobody was willing to switch cabins with him. This perception was only aggravated when he frequently got assigned chores with them, chores that they would frequently screw up and get all three of them caught in some weird slapstick comedy gag. But eventually their good nature and stubborn refusal to leave him be broke down the walls Donald had built around himself and he started talking to the two of them, getting to know them and finding out that they were much deeper than he previously thought.</p><p>Goofy for example might have been a klutz and a fool, but he more than made up for it with a friendly demeanor and a stupidly huge heart. No matter how many times he got knocked down, the dog always found a way to bounce back with a smile and a guffaw; it was sort of admirable in a way. Not to mention how devoted he was to spreading that optimism around, trying to make his friends smile when they were down. It’s probably why his wife loved him; that was the biggest surprise to Donald, the fact that Goofy was not only married but he had a two year old son at home named Max. It was why he went into the navy after all, when he lost his job as a cashier after the store he worked at burned down he was in dire need of income and the US military was able to provide; he was bounced from company to company until he ended up aboard the interceptor where he’s stayed for the past few months. Donald could see that he didn’t like being away from his family for so long but his own caring nature is what helped him power through.</p><p>Mickey on the other hand was a bit more similar to Donald in that he was a bit of a rebel that liked to do things his own way rather than the way people told him too; sometimes this worked out great and other times it came back to bite him but he always stuck to his guns no matter what and Donald could respect that sort of attitude. Armed with a quick wit and a crafty nature, Mickey was the kind of guy who could always get himself out of the trouble he frequently found himself in, a schemster of sorts. Nevertheless, when it really came down to it Mickey could certainly step up as a leader and showed plenty of empathy towards his friends. Apparently he joined up to prove himself to his sweetheart’s family, a beautiful girl by the name of Minnie Mouse, that he was more than just some troublemaker.</p><p>Between Donald’s temper, Goofy’s head in the clouds demeanor, and Mickey’s mischievous side; the trio complemented each other perfectly, their strengths making up for the other’s weaknesses and creating a wonderful group dynamic that allowed them to move and operate as a team. Granted associating with the two didn’t earn Donald any new friends, but he didn’t care, he had all the friends he needed right here.</p><p>The trio quickly became inseparable, doing everything together from helping each other with their various tasks aboard the interceptor to singing together at the ship’s karaoke night (from which Donald had gotten quickly banned from for obvious reasons)</p><p>After all the chaos and uncertainty that had been plaguing his life up until recently, this was exactly what he needed: a break, some time to breathe. A chance to get away from all the craziness that came with being part of the duck family. Sure he missed Della and Scrooge but the letters they sent each other kept any homesickness at bay; for the moment, Donald was content with how things were turning out.</p><p>Unfortunately for him, that period of peace would not be long. He was a part of the duck family through and through, adventure was a part of their lives. If Donald wouldn’t seek it out, adventure would find him.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*******************</p>
</div><p>Dewey groaned. “Ugh, boring. Where’s the action? Where’s the excitement? Where’s Uncle Donald being a hero?”</p><p>Webby shut the journal. “If he kept his time in the navy a secret, there has to be something here. I know it!”</p><p>“Can it wait until tomorrow?” Yawned Louie. “It’s getting kinda late and my bed is starting to look more appealing by the second.”</p><p>“Louie’s right. We’ll have plenty of time to read more later; rule 34 of the junior woodchuck guide states that it’s extremely important to get a full eight hours of rest a day.” Added Huey.</p><p>Dewey relented and climbed into bed as his brothers did the same. While Webby quickly made tracks back through the vents.</p><p>Tomorrow would be another day and another tale in the life of Donald Duck.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Retcons anyone? I've got some fresh out of the oven.</p><p>Oh and the next chapter might take a bit longer to come out, school is kicking my butt right now and I need to focus a bit more.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. sea monsters and tiki bars.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It was a dark and stormy day in Duckburg, a heavy rain blanketed the metropolis and rained down like a hail of bullets, beating against windows and streets with a harsh pitter patter, lightning striking the tops of buildings and illuminating the sky for a brief moment before dissipating and leaving rolling thunder behind as the only evidence they were ever even there. It was quite a terrible storm hitting Duckburg, forcing all of its inhabitants indoors to escape the flash flood. You’d have to be pretty unlucky to get caught out in this weather.</p><p>Donald hummed to himself as he poured out a few cups of hot cocoa for the kids. After hearing the weather report warning of a storm rolling in, Donald battened down the houseboat and spent the night on one of the many couches in the manor once he was sure the ship had been properly secured. When he saw just how bad the storm got, he was extremely glad he did so, imagine what could have happened if he had the misfortune of getting caught off guard by the storm? He might have ended up with pneumonia.</p><p>The weather grounded any and all flights out of duckburg, the high winds and lighting making it virtually suicide to go up in the air, and even Della Duck herself wasn’t about to risk the cloudchaser under these conditions. She was a good pilot, possibly the world’s best, but even she had her limits. As for Launchpad? He was more than willing to fly but everyone with half a brain shut that idea down quickly. With both his pilots out of commission, Scrooge was forced to cancel the adventure he had planned for today to paradise island; the lasso of truth would simply have to wait.</p><p>Seeing as they were trapped indoors while the storm raged outside, the triplets decided to make the best of a bad situation and show Webby how to build a proper pillow fort; something she had never done in the past despite being confined to the mansion for most of her life. Once they had seized control of the largest living room, they set to work; initially they had only planned to make a small fort, no bigger than a camping tent. But as things went on and with Webby being Webby, the fort quickly spiraled into a multi roomed fortress that took up the entire living room and even spilled out into the adjacent hallways, they had even stripped several other sitting rooms of cushions and blankets for construction materials. It was a grand old time.</p><p>But when Donald came upon the fortress, he grew confused when Della was standing outside of one of the entrances seemingly trying to work something out in her head if the hyper focused look upon her face was anything to go by.</p><p>“Something wrong Della?” Asked the sailor.</p><p>The pilot turned to face her brother. “Well I went to tell the kids that you were making hot chocolate, but I ended up getting lost in the pillow fort. So then I brought Launchpad along to help me search for them and I lost track of him too. It’s been about ten minutes now, I’m pretty sure he can’t find a way out.”</p><p>“Those kids are too smart for their own good sometimes.” Donald said with a sigh, placing down the tray of hot cocoa on a nearby pedestal. “I’ll get Ms.Beakley to fish him out...again.”</p><p>While Donald plodded off in search of the aforementioned housekeeper and Della stood at the entrance in case her co-pilot showed up out of the blue, the kids were having the time of their lives in the theatre area of the pillow fort (Dewey’s idea.), reading through their uncle’s secret journal and all the tales it held upon it’s pages.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***************************</p>
</div><p>It was a bright and sunny day aboard the USS interceptor. The sun was shining down on the deep pacific blue, it’s rays shimmering off the waves, there wasn’t so much as a cloud in the sky overhead and there was a gentle breeze coming through the air. All was calm, all was bright, it was a great day to spend outside and anyone would be lucky to be caught in such perfect weather.</p><p>Donald sighed as he gazed upon the seemingly endless body of water, letting the gentle motion of the waves slowly sink him down into a sense of calm as he swabbed the deck alongside his two best friends who were clearly enjoying the serenity just as much as he was</p><p>It was these moments of peace that really let Donald sit back and reflect on his inner thoughts.</p><p>What occupied his mind this fine day you ask? Well Donald was thinking about renewing his deployment for the Navy, his current deployment would be up in about three months and he really wasn’t ready to give up marine life. He rather liked sailing the open ocean as opposed to running for his life through some godforsaken temple.</p><p>As a matter of fact, he could easily see himself spending the rest of his days at sea, sailing the world’s oceans and working his way up the chain of command and maybe even get his own ship someday, captain Donald Duck did have a rather nice ring to it. True Della and Scrooge would protest, saying that they needed him but they were clearly doing fine in their adventures without him. Besides, it’s not like he’d never see them again if he chose to stay in the navy; there was always shore leave and breaks in deployment, he could get some quality time with them then before heading back out to the open waters.</p><p>‘They’ll understand I know they…’ Donald’s train of thought came to a pause when he looked out at the open ocean again, it might have just been his eyes playing tricks but the duck swore he saw something moving beneath the waves in the distance.</p><p>Shaking it off, Donald returned to mopping up the deck. The last thing he needed was for captain Nemo to start breathing down his neck again for slacking off. But when he looked up at the water again, he saw a rather sizable shadow moving towards the ship, circling it almost.</p><p>‘Now I know I’m not seeing things.’ Donald thought to himself as he abandoned his mop and moved to the edge of the deck, leaning against the railing to try and get a better look. The sound of bird cries drew away his attention to the skies, where he saw dozens of seagulls taking flight away from the area all at once.</p><p>“Donald, you okay there buddy?” Asked Mickey, snapping his friend out of his observations with a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“No...something’s wrong here. Very very wro-”</p><p>Donald was cut off as the ship suddenly and violently tilted to the side, throwing the three trio against a nearby wall with a loud clang.</p><p>Before any of them could groan in pain and rub the lumps that were now very likely forming on the backs of their heads, the ship tilted in the other direction and threw the three of them against the railing; or rather it threw Goofy against the railing while Donald and Mickey went sailing over the side.</p><p>The only reason that the mouse and duck didn’t end up in the drink was because Goofy managed to catch them by scruffs of their uniforms and yank them back aboard the interceptor.</p><p>“What in the world is going on here?!” Goofy exclaimed, still trying to regain his balance as the ship rocked back and forth.</p><p>He got an answer very quickly, as a tentacle shot out from the water and brought itself down right where the three sailors were standing. Luckily for them, Donald’s quick reflexes from his days as Paperinik came in handy as he narrowly tackled Mickey and Goofy out of harm's way. The tentacle slamming against the ship and wrapping itself around the side, the steel of the ship groaning in protest of the force being applied to it.</p><p>Soon enough several more tentacles began to emerge from the water and slapped themselves against the ship, wrapping around the steel hull and immobilizing the vessel while simultaneously squeezing it apart and rocking it like a rubber duck in a bathtub.</p><p>The men aboard the interceptor were thrown into complete disharmony in the face of this new threat. Half of them were running around in a panic like chickens with their heads cut off, while the other half had taken up arms in an attempt to kill the beast; unfortunately their attacks seemed to have little to no effect on the beast’s hide.</p><p>Then the head of the beast showed itself, a massive bulging gord with sickly green skin still slick with ocean water. A single angry eye glared down and the panicking sailors aboard the ship as they rushed around like ants; the mouth below it split open sideways to reveal rows upon rows of bloodstained, razor sharp teeth and a roar flew out soon after like a demented foghorn.</p><p>“W-what is that thing?!” Mickey stuttered out, shivering against the stack of crates him, Donald, and Goofy were hiding behind.</p><p>Donald knew perfectly well what that thing was, it was hard to forget a monster that nearly ate you when you were thirteen after all. It was the cy-kraken, a subspecies of krakens native to the pacific ocean; categorized by a near impenetrable hide and an extreme aggression towards ships. Even so, such a beast would be easy pickings for his family during an adventure; but neither Scrooge nor Della was with him right now and the men aboard the ship didn’t even know what they were facing, much less how to beat it and to be perfectly honest Donald was drawing a bit of a blank too. This wasn’t like his superhero days where he had every tool he needed strapped to his wrist, all he had on him was his bare hands.</p><p>‘Come on Donald. Think! What would Scrooge do?’ The sailor thought to himself as the ship pitched forwards again and sent several smaller crates shattering to the ground in front of him, spilling out two items: flares and bombs. While normally Donald would be questioning what kind of idiot would stack these two items together, especially so precariously, seeing those two items gave him an idea along with a reminder of something from that day:</p><p>
  <em>‘Remember, the cy-Kraken may seem invulnerable, but it does have a weakness: it’s eye. Should you run into one, give in a firm punch in the eye to shoo it away.’</em>
</p><p>“That’s it!” Donald shouted before turning to his friends. “I’ve got an idea!”</p><p>“Great! What is it?” Goofy exclaimed, still clearly terrified.</p><p>“Okay so. We’ll have to make our way to the front of the ship where the head of the kraken is. Once there, Mickey will distract the monster-“</p><p>“What? Why do I have to be the distraction? Why can’t you do it?!” Mickey protested.</p><p>“Do you want to be the one to climb on that giant squid?”</p><p>Mickey pauses, seemingly thinking this over before sighing. “Alright, continue.”</p><p>“Good. Now while Mickey is drawing it’s attention I’ll be climbing up the kraken’s head while Goofy is taking cover behind those crates over there with these explosives.” Explained Donald, holding up the aforementioned bomb. “Once I get it’s mouth open, I need you to light the fuse and throw the bomb inside. If everything goes well it should send that overgrown octopus running- I mean swimming for the hills. Got it guys?”</p><p>Mickey nodded. “Got it! Let’s go!”</p><p>Arming themselves with some conveniently placed paddles, the trio charged forth towards the bow of the ship. Ducking, Dodging, and occasionally smacking tentacles away from them as the ship was slowly being torn apart beneath them; equipment and sailors flying every which way under the assault.</p><p>As they reached the front they could actually see captain Nemo was leading the charge against the monster, trying to regain some semblance of order while screaming and firing on the kraken. Unfortunately for the old sea dog, he didn’t see a tentacle coming right for him and ended up flying across the deck where he landed with a loud slam.</p><p>Even though they didn’t have any practice beforehand, the trio got into formation almost seamlessly: Goofy dove behind an overturned lifeboat and got the bomb ready, holding one of the flares in his hand in anticipation; Mickey rushed forwards, letting out a surprisingly fierce battle cry as he started swinging at the cy-kraken, his paddle smacking against every limb within reach, even crushing one against the deck causing the overgrown squid to let out a slight grunt of pain as it started swinging at the poor mouse, luckily for Mickey his small size and nimble feet made him a tough target to hit; as for Donald, he had leapt over the railing while the kraken had been distracted and clung to the beast’s side.</p><p>You would think that a squid that has recently emerged from the ocean would be all kinds of slick and nearly impossible to grab onto it, but Donald was somehow able to get a decent foothold against it; something he absentmindedly chalked up to his years of adventuring experience as he started climbing. It wasn’t an easy task by far, the squid didn’t seem keen on standing still and every time it jerked around while attempting to hit Mickey, Donald nearly got thrown off in the process but his sheer stubbornness allowed him to hang in there.</p><p>Eventually he was right next to the cy-kraken’s lone eye and just in time too. He heard Mickey scream and looked over to see that the mouse had been captured by two tentacles that were now trying to pull him apart like a christmas cracker. Donald had to act fast or his friend was a goner.</p><p>Pulling out the flare from one of his suit pockets, Donald bit off the cap and yelled. “HEY UGLY! OVER HERE!!”</p><p>The cy-kraken’s pupil darted over in the direction of the duck just in time to see a lit flare get jammed inside of it, a loud screech resonating from the monster as it’s eye began to burn. Dropping Mickey in the process whose fall was broken by some conveniently placed life vests.</p><p>“I’m okay!!” Mickey said, giving his friend a thumbs up.</p><p>“Great! Now goofy! Throw the bomb!” Donald said as he held onto the flailing monster with all his might, resisting every jerk and flail of pain that it performed in at attempt to dislodge the offending sailor that was burning out it’s retinas.</p><p>There was a brief delay as Goofy struggled to light the fuse, a delay that felt like an eternity to Donald as his grip started to give way, but the dog came through and popped up from behind the lifeboat, throwing the bomb with all his might. The explosive sailed through the air and hit the back of the cy-kraken’s throat dead center</p><p>The giant squid finally managed to shake Donald off, sending the poor duck sailing over the side of the ship where he narrowly managed to cling to the side of the ship by the tips of his fingers. The burnt eye of the monster glared angrily down at the remaining men for a brief moment before it seemingly realized what it had just swallowed and started to panic. That moment of panic was also brief as a loud boom came from the cy-kraken’s guts followed by smoke leaking out of it’s mouth, it’s eye rolled into the back of it’s head as the tentacles it had wrapped around the ship suddenly went limp and slithered off, the rest of it’s now dead body sinking beneath the waves.</p><p>With that, the trio had managed to save their friends, the ship, and the day all in one fell swoop.</p><p>Seeing as the danger had passed, Goofy quickly rushed over to his friend hanging over the side of the ship and quickly helped him back aboard. “Are ya okay Donald?”</p><p>Donald flexed his sore fingers. “My knuckles are killing me, but other than that I’m fine.”</p><p>“Are you sure?” Mickey interjected, quickly joining Goofy in checking their friend over. “That was quite the fall you took there!”</p><p>“I’ll live. I’ve been through worse anyway.”</p><p>Mickey and Goofy frowned, preparing to ask him what he meant by that, when the sound of someone clearing their throat distracted the trio. Looking behind them, they found that Captain Nemo was standing there with a proud smile on his face instead of his usual stern frown.</p><p>“I must say boys, you’ve managed to impress me.” Nemo said. “If it wasn’t for your quick thinking we’d all be headed to a watery grave right now.”</p><p>“Aw it was nothing.” Donald sheepishly replied. “Right guys?”</p><p>Mickey and Goofy sounded off in agreement.</p><p>“Still, you’ve certainly earned my respect for your actions. Tell ya what, we sustained some pretty major damage from the attack and will have to dock at pearl harbor for the next couple of days. How about you use that time for some R&amp;R? I’d say you’ve certainly earned it.”</p><p>Shore leave in Hawaii for the next week? Well it would be rude not to accept the invitation.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***************************</p>
</div><p>Donald grabbed their drinks off the bar, all non-alcoholic considering goofy was the only one old enough for booze but he wasn’t much of a drinker anyways. Figures, old enough to join the navy but not only enough to have a beer. At least this bar had some great mocktails, and a bartender that appreciated service members enough to give them the first round on the house.</p><p>It was good to be in the Navy.</p><p>Making his way back over to his friends, Donald noticed that Mickey and Goofy seemed to be locked in a rather intense discussion while occasionally shooting glances in his direction as he got closer. The Duck thought nothing of it, now that the adrenalin had worn off the duo were likely pretty shaken from their first ever sea monster attack; this kind of thing doesn’t happen everyday after all.</p><p>Well, unless you were Scrooge Mcduck’s nephew.</p><p>When he sat down, Mickey almost immediately turned to face Donald with a rather nervous expression. “So Donald. Can we talk to you about something?”</p><p>“Sure, shoot.” Donald replied, taking a sip of his shirley temple.</p><p>“Where did you learn to do all that?”</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”</p><p>“Back on the ship, when we fought off that sea monster.” Mickey explained. “You jumped on top of it and climbed all the way up to it’s eye like it was nothing at all. You don’t just do something like that, that has to be practiced and learned.”</p><p>Donald nervously shifted in his seat. He knew exactly where they were going with this.</p><p>The three of them had dozens of conversations during the time they’ve known each other, ranging anywhere from sports teams to favorite music to hopes and dreams; but one topic that Donald constantly danced around was his past and family. The only thing he had told Mickey and Goofy was that his parents had died when he was a kid and had lived with his uncle and sister ever since; he never mentioned that uncle was Scrooge Mcduck nor did he mention any of the adventures he went on with him.</p><p>Mickey and Goofy had pressed him for more information on numerous occasions but Donald rebuffed them every single time and eventually they decided to just let it be, Donald’s family was his business. It wasn’t that Donald was ashamed of his heritage, far from it, it’s just that whenever someone found out that he was related to Scrooge McDuck they almost immediately ceased to see Donald Duck and instead saw a doorway to the richest duck in the world. He was scared that Mickey and Goofy would act much of the same way if they ever found out.</p><p>Goofy placed a hand on Donald’s shoulder. “C’mon Donald, don’t ya trust us?”</p><p>Donald sighed, they clearly weren’t going to let this go after what had happened. He might as well just get it over with and tell them the truth.</p><p>“Alright fine, you know how I told you guys that I lived with my uncle ever since I was seven?”</p><p>Mickey and Goofy nodded in unison.</p><p>“Well…” Donald swallowed the lump in his throat. “that uncle just so happens to be Scrooge Mcduck.”</p><p>There was a brief moment of silence that washed over the table. The three men looking at one another from their respective spots before Mickey finally spoke up.</p><p>“Scrooge Mcduck, the billionaire Scrooge Mcduck?” Mickey said in disbelief. “You’re pulling our legs.”</p><p>Donald shook his head, flipping open his wallet to reveal a picture of him standing with his sister and the aforementioned billionaire at a boardwalk pier. Undeniable proof of his words.</p><p>“Wow. Who’da thought…”</p><p>“And before you ask.” Said Donald. “No, I don’t have any of his money; Scrooge wouldn’t give me a cent of his fortune, not that I ever needed It.”</p><p>A confused look quickly came across the faces .</p><p>“why would we ask about that?” Goofy replied. “We don’t care about money.”</p><p>Donald blinked, that was NOT the reaction he was expecting.</p><p>“Really? You don’t care that I’m Scrooge’s nephew?”</p><p>“Well I wouldn’t say that” Mickey interjected. “It is a crazy thing after all, being related to the richest duck in the world, but you’re still the same old Donald to us.”</p><p>Donald leaned back in his chair, just trying to wrap his head around this; for the first time in a long time, he had friends that liked him for who he was, not because he was a billionaire’s son, not because he was a superhero, but because he was Donald Duck.</p><p>“Hey.” Mickey placed a hand on Donald’s leg. “Being related to Scrooge Mcduck doesn’t change anything between us, you could be the adopted son of a yeti and a frog and we wouldn’t care, you’re our friend Donald and you always will be.”</p><p>“Yeah besides. After ya fight a sea monster together you form a bond thicker than any bacon soup money can buy.” Goofy said, wrapping the duck and mouse in a big hug. “Sorry Donald, but it looks like you’re stuck with us.”</p><p>Donald chuckled, enjoying the warmth of the hug “I think I’ll survive.”</p><p>Once they managed to free themselves from the embrace, Mickey focused his gaze towards the beach outside with a mischievous smile coming on his face.</p><p>“Hey, how about a swim guys? The water sure looks inviting.”</p><p>“Sure, why not?” Goofy replied. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”</p><p>The dog quickly rushed out, Mickey and Donald quickly following after him with smiles on their faces.</p><p>The rest of their time on that hawaiian island was just fine….</p><p>At least until they got into a confrontation at a bar three days later when some cow named Clarabelle decided to make goo-goo eyes at Goofy, earning the ire of her boyfriend. Words were exchanged, insults were flung, and long story short Donald knocked the guy out. Leading to a long winded chase scene where the trio escaped on a bike; Goofy was manning the pedals, Mickey was hanging onto him, and Donald was sitting in a basket up front. Said chase ended with them doing an incredibly sick jump onto the interceptor right before it pulled out of port, they all had a good laugh about it in the end.</p><p>From then on, Donald knew he had found some life long friends.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***************************</p>
</div><p>“BWAAAH! FINALLY!” Launchpad shouted as he burst through one of the pillow walls, scaring the life out of the kids who quickly hid the journal from sight.</p><p>“I’VE BEEN STUCK IN HERE FOR DAYS!”</p><p>Huey glanced at his watch. “Launchpad, we’ve only been in here for an hour.”</p><p>“IT WAS HARD, I HAD TO EAT SEVERAL BLANKETS AND PILLOWS JUST TO SURVIVE.” Exclaimed launchpad, ignoring Huey’s comment. “BUT FINALLY I’VE FOUND YOU GUYS! NOW WE CAN ESCAPE AND GET SOME OF DONALD’S HOT CHOCOLATE!”</p><p>“Wait, Uncle Donald’s making hot chocolate?!” Said Dewey before breaking through the blanket ceiling covering their fort. “I want sprinkles on mine!”</p><p>“You had better not hog all the whipped cream like last time Dewey!” Louie exclaimed, chasing after his triplet and knocking over several other pieces of the fort in the process.</p><p>Seeing as the pillow fort had been reduced to rubble, Launchpad stood up in relief as he had been ‘freed’ from his prison of fabric and feathers. “Phew, never thought I’d see the light of day again. Anyways, what was that book you were reading?”</p><p>Huey and Webby looked at each other nervously before the latter replied. “What book? We didn’t have any books, I’ve never seen a book in my life.”</p><p>Huey facepalmed, lying really wasn’t Webby’s strong suit; thankfully for them, Launchpad wasn’t exactly difficult to fool.</p><p>“Oh okay then. Well I’m gonna try and sneak a cup of cocoa from Donald, see ya guys!”</p><p>The air-headed pilot then scampered off in the direction of the other two triplets, leaving the oldest of the trio alone with their honorary sister.</p><p>“Something went wrong didn’t it?” Webby said. “In the navy, I mean.”</p><p>“If Donald never brought it up, probably. But he’s still friends with Mickey and Goofy, so he didn’t ruin their relationship; so what does that leave?” Huey replied.</p><p>Webby pondered that point for a moment, turning it over in her head a few times before shrugging her shoulders. “I’ve got nothing, we’ll just have to keep reading and find out later.”</p><p>Huey nodded, it was the only thing they could do to find out about their uncle’s past after all. No matter how many twists and turns it may take.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The next chapter will be the last one in the Navy Arc and where I get the obligatory pirates of the Caribbean references in.<br/>After that Donald will be off to his secret agent career.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. attack of the zombie pirates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Penumbra’s face hit the sand for what felt like the hundredth time today, a volleyball impacting against the back of her head while she was down.</p><p>“Woo! Seven to nil! Duck twins for the win!” Della exclaimed giving her brother a high five.</p><p>About a week after the Flintheart Glomwheel incident, wherein Penumbra finally learned that there was a place for her on Earth, Della decided that a beach day would be a perfect experience for the moonlander and ended up dragging the whole family out (sans Scrooge who was busy overseeing the construction of a new hat factory overseas) for a day of sun, sand, and surf.</p><p>Things went well at first, building sandcastles, swimming in the ocean, having a chicken or rather duck fight with Donald and Launchpad going up against Della and Penumbra (the girls won handily by the way). But then Penumbra discovered the existence of beach volleyball and insisted on playing; as of recently the moonlander had been getting really into competitive sports of all kinds, seeing them as a way to test her physical abilities. It did strike her as odd that Della almost immediately claimed Donald as her teammate instead of herself, but the warrior shrugged it off and assumed it was a ‘family’ thing.</p><p>Several rounds of complete and under humiliation, courtesy of the twins, made Penumbra realize that Della knew exactly what she was doing when she picked Donald as her partner. But she was the greatest warrior the moon had ever known, she wasn’t about to give up now. She was mighty, she was the moon, and-</p><p>“Come on Penny, I know we’ve lost every point so far and barely managed to hit the ball back but I just know we can turn this around!” Launchpad exclaimed, helping the alien to her feet.</p><p>Oh yeah, and she had the world’s greatest sidekick on her side.</p><p>As the adults were completely engrossed in their game, the kids had seized the opportunity to slip away into a rather secluded section of the beach hidden behind a series of rock formations that served as the perfect place to get some privacy, something they most definitely needed when digging into Donald’s past.</p><p>After doing a quick final check to ensure nobody noticed they were missing, Dewey retreated to join the others.</p><p>“Alright I think we’re good, Mom and Donald are too busy owning Penumbra and Launchpad in volleyball. We’ve got a good half hour until they stop.”</p><p>“Then we’d better hurry through this.” Webby replied, opening the journal once more.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*****************</p>
</div><p>Donald sighed in his bed, staring at the ceiling of the cabin from his spot on the bed. The only sounds resonating through the air was Goofy’s noisy snoring, for most that sound would have been the cause of many sleepless nights but Donald had grown accustomed to it and the snores became almost soothing in a way. Sleep still eluded him this night however, his mind was a buzz with various thoughts regarding the past couple of months.</p><p>After they were attacked by the sea monster, things went back to business as usual aboard the interceptor. The only difference being that the rest of the crew treated Donald, Mickey, and Goofy with a little more respect, captain Nemo granting them a bit more leeway when it came to their duties; that and the conversations Donald had with his bunkmates would occasionally turn into storytelling sessions where he’d delve into the wild adventures he went on with his uncle and sister.</p><p>However, as time went on, Donald eventually noticed another thing that had changed aboard the interceptor after that day: he was bored. Not a ‘there’s nothing to do today bored’, no this was an advanced boredom that lingered from day to day.</p><p>It was a gradual change at first but little by little he found himself becoming less and less satisfied with his life at sea, the things that used to bring him joy and peace now seemed dull and drab. Mickey and Goofy being the only exceptions, their antics always kept him on his toes. But it wasn’t enough to stave off the overarching feelings of monotony that were plaguing him as of late.</p><p>The most frustrating thing about it is that he didn’t know why he suddenly got bored of the navy, it wasn’t like anything had changed about his routine. Sure the crew was nicer to him but that couldn’t make him feel the way he was now.</p><p>Donald turned over and gently climbed out of bed, fixing his pajamas. Maybe a late night stroll on the upper decks would do him some good, help him get his head on straight.</p><p>Sneaking out of the room with a level of stealth fitting of a ninja, Donald made his way up to the top decks. A blanket of stars shining down upon the ship as it gently cruised through the dark waves, the industrial lights emanating from the windows of the inside of the ship where the night crew was still hard at work giving the deck a bright glow.</p><p>It was a bit chilly out but Donald hardly minded, the cold air felt nice against his feathers as he ran a hand along the railing of the ship, walking alongside it.</p><p>“Okay Donald, think. You were fine before and after you stopped that sea monster…” Donald trailed off as it suddenly struck him</p><p>Did..did he miss adventure?</p><p>Donald shook his head. “No, I don’t miss it. I...I belong in the navy. I’m happy here...aren’t I?”</p><p>But the more he thought about it the more he started second guessing himself. The rush he got during that incident, the focus he held as he put his plan into motion, and the feelings of victory he received when him and his friends vanquished the beast and saved the crew; it was all too familiar to him, like an old friend he hadn’t seen in awhile. He wanted stability in his life, to avoid situations where he’d have to risk life and limb, but after adventure sought him out once more he can’t help but feel like he needs to go back to it.</p><p>Donald was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice the figure swiftly approaching him from behind.</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep huh?”</p><p>Donald nearly fell off the ship in surprise, narrowly managing to grab a hold of the railing before he went over and turning to face the figure. He was met with the rather concerned visage of one Mickey Mouse.</p><p>Donald shook his head. “Nope.”</p><p>“Something bothering you pal?” The mouse questioned</p><p>“Well…” Donald sighed. “It’s just that I thought I finally found a place where I belonged, where I was happy. But now...now I’m not so sure the naval life is meant for me.”</p><p>Mickey motioned for him to continue.</p><p>“My entire life has just been a long string of life-threatening adventures, being dragged from place to place by my family with my bad luck always putting me in harm’s way and the navy looked like the perfect place to get away from it.” Donald explained. “And I love being here, I love the safety and stability. But ever since I got a reminder of my old life, a life of thrill and danger...it’s like I’m becoming homesick.”</p><p>“Maybe you just needed a break.” Mickey replied, earning a confused look from Donald. “Look, we all get sick of the chaos of our daily lives now and then, and when that happens we just need a bit of time to step away from it all and breathe. You liked being here because it gave you that time and with all the stories you told Goofy and I, I can certainly see you were in desperate need of it. But now that you’ve had time to breath, time to heal, you’re starting to feel like you need to get back to a life of adventure because that’s where you belong; not here.”</p><p>As much as Donald hated to admit it: Mickey did have a point, one that made a lot of sense to him. But before he could give a retort, a white hot streak flew between them and smashed into the side of the ship, sending both men flying back in surprise. When they recovered, they realized that a cannonball had just narrowly missed the two of them.</p><p>Head darting around like a hyperactive owl, Donald ended up spotting the source of the attack first: a massive pirate ship that had seemed to materialize from seemingly nowhere, it’s black sails billowing against the wind as it fired another volley of cannon balls that did a surprisingly large amount of damage to the interceptor. Thankfully all of the shots seemed to be aimed at the upper decks, for whatever reason the enemy ship didn’t seem to want to sink them, at least not yet.</p><p>Donald and Mickey then looked at each other and knew in that moment they were thinking the exact same thing: they had to find Goofy and come up with a plan, FAST.</p><p>The duo quickly made their way to the lower decks, the sounds of explosions echoing from above as more cannonballs embedded themselves into the hull of the ship. Their fellow sailors rushing around in sheer panic at the prospect of this surprise attack, some clearly having just been woken up from their sleep and scared out of their minds.</p><p>Goofy was not amongst that group, in fact when Mickey and Donald arrived in their shared cabin they found that the lanky dog had barely even been roused by the sounds of cannon fire from above and was still peacefully snoring the night away.</p><p>The mouse quickly rushed over to his side and started gently trying to awaken his sleeping comrade with a few shakes of the shoulder but to no avail. Prompting Donald to shove Mickey aside with a sigh of exasperation.</p><p>“You won’t get anywhere like that, let me show you how to wake up a heavy sleeper.” said Donald as he climbed on top of goofy and straddled his stomach before hosting him up by the collar. “Oh goofy, Goofy...WAKE UP GOLDIELOCKS! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”</p><p>The Duck started violently shaking his taller friend, head whipping around until his eyes finally snapped open with a start. Naturally when someone is shaking you in such a manner you’re going to be startled when you finally do wake up and Goofy was no exception, as the moment he joined the waking world he immediately started flailing about in a half-awake panic, causing both him and Donald to fall out of bed and land on the floor in a heap.</p><p>“Huh?! Wha?! What’s goin on?!” Goofy shouted, trying to untangle himself from Donald with the duck doing the same.</p><p>Three more booms coming in quick succession from above them quickly answered that question. “Pirates, suit up and meet us topside; and bring a weapon, We’re heading for a fight.”</p><p>Goofy nodded and quickly scrambled into his uniform, following his friends up to the top and arming themselves along the way.</p><p>When they reached the top they were treated to some good news and some bad news.</p><p>Good news? Unlike during the cy-kraken attack, the crew was much more prepared for something like this and were in a far more organized state than before.</p><p>The bad news? They were still losing ground to the pirates that were now boarding the interceptor. Sure, the pirates seemed to only be armed with swords but they were extremely durable, almost supernaturally so if the way they tanked bullets was anything to go by.</p><p>The trio fought alongside their brothers in arms, but it very quickly became apparent that they were simply outmatched by this unknown force that was completely swarming them and within minutes they broke the sailors’ formation and sent them scrambling.</p><p>“Phooey! I’m out of ammo!” Donald shouted, throwing the now empty rifle to the ground with Mickey and Goofy following suit shortly after.</p><p>“Me too!”</p><p>“Same here!”</p><p>Donald gritted his teeth, this wasn’t good. He could already see the pirates rounding up the others, Captain Nemo included. They had lost the numbers advantage and it wouldn’t be long until they joined their fellow sailors; as much as he hated to admit it, their only option was to flee and regroup.</p><p>“To the dinghies!” Donald shouted. “We can’t get captured like the rest of them.”</p><p>They didn’t have to be told twice, the trio broke into a full on sprint towards the rear end of the ship where the aforementioned lifeboat was stationed. Unfortunately for them, some of the pirates noticed and began to make chase, adamant on capturing the entire crew.</p><p>“They’re gaining on us!” Mickey shrieked.</p><p>Donald looked over his shoulder and frowned, there was no way they’d be able to outrun these guys as the current pace they were going. So he decided to try and slow them down a bit. The duck started knocking over random objects as he passed by, some of which had no place being on a naval vessel such as a bucket of marbles, a container of glue, and a crate full of banana peels. Donald would normally question why these were even here but he was too focused on running for his life; at least his plan had succeeded as the pirates promptly started slipping on all the spilled objects, allowing the trio to quickly pull ahead.</p><p>Their good fortune would not last for long however, as when they finally reached the lifeboat Goofy realized that he had completely forgotten to fill it up with gas like he was supposed to earlier.</p><p>At this point Donald was about ready to tear the feathers off of his head. “OF COURSE! WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG RIGHT NOW?!”</p><p>“I think they went this way!” the voice of one of the pirates cut through the air.</p><p>“Me and my big mouth…”</p><p>“It’s fine! We’ve got a can of gas right here!” Mickey said, holding up the aforementioned can. “We just have to fill up the motor and we’ll be home free!”</p><p>Donald looked between his friends and the long stretch of ship that they had just come from, the thundering sound of stomping boots getting progressively louder as they closed in. The duck knew that the pirates would catch up to them long before Mickey could fuel up the ship, so he did the only thing that made sense right now.</p><p>Arming himself with a long pipe, Donald started heading in the direction of the pursuing pirates. Something that didn’t go unnoticed by Mickey.</p><p>“Donald? Where are ya going?”</p><p>“To buy you guys some time.” Said Donald turning to face his friends. “I’ll hold them off, give you a chance to escape.”</p><p>Goofy’s eyes widened at that. “Wha- But we can’t just leave ya behind! We’re a team!”</p><p>“And teammates look after each other, just like how I’m making sure you two stay safe.” Donald replied.</p><p>“B-but Donald-” Mickey stuttered out.</p><p>“No buts! I’ve made up my mind, get out of here and find some help! I’ll be fine! I’m Donald Duck!”</p><p>With that Donald rushed towards the pirates with a loud battle cry, ready to face them head on for the sake of his friend. If he had looked back in that moment, he would have seen Goofy and Mickey give a tearful salute as they slowly lowered the boat into the water.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*****************</p>
</div><p>Donald thought he handled himself pretty well, all things considered. He managed to dispatch twelve pirates with his bare hands before a big one named Barbossa showed up and walloped him over the head, knocking him out almost instantly.</p><p>When he came to, Donald found himself being dragged through a dirty old hallway made of stone before he was roughly tossed into a dingy little cell. The bars slamming shut behind him.</p><p>Once he managed to get back on his feet, the duck decided to observe his surroundings and try to figure out how much trouble he was in right now.</p><p>The first thing he noticed was that instead of the gentle sounds of the ocean that he had grown so accustomed to, waves slapping against the ship and wind whipping through the air, he was treated to the sounds of bird calls and buzzing bugs; ones that you might find within the confines of a jungle.</p><p>Looking out of his cell window, Donald confirmed his suspicions and saw that they were indeed in the middle of a jungle...actually no, scratch that, now that he boosted himself up onto the tips of his feet he could see that they were actually on an island jungle. What was more interesting was that there seemed to be an abundance of buildings ranging anywhere from well built concrete structures to shoddily made shanty towns; if he had to take a wild guess, Donald would say that they had been taken back to the pirate’s hideout as prisoners.</p><p>“Oh good, you’re still alive.”</p><p>Donald looked behind him to see the neutral expression of Captain Nemo staring at him from the cell directly across from his own, the slightest hint of fear was evident within the old dog’s eyes.</p><p>“I thought that after that big fella bashed you over the head you were done for, but it looks like you’re still kicking.”</p><p>Donald walked over to his cell door to properly address the captain. “How long was I out?”</p><p>“Only for a few hours, but you missed a lot during that time.”</p><p>The captain went into an in-depth explanation about just how far up the creek they all were: apparently they had been captured by a pirate that was simply referred to as ‘captain Jack’ who was a master of necromancy and commanded a crew of zombie pirates, which explained their strange level of durability and tenacity. They weren’t invulnerable by any means, having been resurrected by voodoo magic instead of that from the underworld, but they were far more durable than the average man. Jack had been sailing around this end of the pacific, plundering ships and turning their occupants into zombies to add to his crew and fleet like a normal pirate; and he intended to give the rest of the crew the same treatment, with a ‘special’ plan for Donald that Jack refused to elaborate on when Nemo asked. Worse still, Jack was planning on adding the interceptor to his main fleet and launching even bigger attacks with the warship.</p><p>“And that’s the situation son, I’ll be honest it’s not looking great for any of us.” Nemo said, finishing his explanation.</p><p>“Oh come now. Don’t be like that.” Said the zombified parrot serving as their guard. “Being a zombie ain’t that bad, you’re immortal, you feel less pain, and you get to serve under the great Captain Jack and help him conquer the seas. What’s not to like?”</p><p>“Do you mind? This is a private conversation.” Donald said, glaring at the zombie pirate.</p><p>“Oop, sorry. I’ll be quiet now.”</p><p>“Donald, Goofy and Mickey weren’t with you when we got captured. Please, please tell me they managed to escape.” Nemo pleaded.</p><p>Donald nodded, and the captain let out a sigh of relief.</p><p>“Good, maybe they’ll be able to send in reinforcements to come rescue us.”</p><p>“I doubt it.” the zombie parrot interjected once more. “Captain’s gonna zombify all of you come next sun rise, there’s no way your sailor buddies can get to you before then. You might as well just give up now and accept your new pirate life.”</p><p>“Ducks don’t back down.” Donald spat in defiance. “You haven’t beaten us yet.”</p><p>The pirate merely chuckled. “Alright, whatever you say duck. Doesn’t make much of a difference in the end, by hook or by crook you’ll all join the crew.”</p><p>The pirated then shambled off, no doubt to check on the other prisoners, leaving Nemo and Donald alone with each other.</p><p>“So, you have a plan to get us out of this boy-o?”</p><p>Donald searched his mind, gazing around his cell for anything of use but found that it was completely barren; and with only until morning to figure something out, mere hours, he found himself drawing a complete and utter blank.</p><p>“I’ve got nothing.” Donald said, hanging his head. “Mickey and Goofy are the only chance we’ve got, we just have to hope they can rescue us in time.”</p><p>“Donald. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if those two escaped in one of the lifeboats it could be days before they reach any naval base and we both know it’ll be too late for us by then.”</p><p>Donald slammed his head against the bars and slid down until he was in a sitting position. This was it, he was doomed, he was going to be zombified and there was nothing he could do to stop it.</p><p>Sure, he had been in plenty of tight spots like this before both as Scrooge’s sidekick and as Paperinik. This was different however, then he always had something or someone to bail him out when he fell short on an adventure be it his family or ONE. But now he was all alone with no tools and no allies to help him.</p><p>He then thought of Scrooge and Della, he’d probably never see them again and if they ever discovered his fate they’d be heartbroken at best and horrified at worst. He couldn’t bear the idea.</p><p>But before he could break down crying, Donald heard the sound of a pain filled grunt, followed by the thump of a body hitting the floor.</p><p>Moments later, two more zombie pirates walked into view: there was a tall, lanky one with a tri-peaked hat and a long beard covering his face; the shorter one had a Bandana tied around his head and an equally long beard covering his face. Donald couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something just a little off about them.</p><p>“Donald! You’re okay!” Exclaimed the shorter one.</p><p>Donald’s jaw dropped in bewilderment, he’d recognize that voice anywhere.</p><p>“Mickey?!”</p><p>The mouse swiftly tore away his disguise, Goofy quickly following suit.</p><p>“See Mick! I told ya they were here!” Goofy said with a chuckle.</p><p>“Wait, how are you guys here?” Donald narrowed his eyes. “I thought I told you guys to go get help!”</p><p>Mickey started fiddling with a key ring. “We are the help Donald! We couldn’t leave ya behind buddy so we followed the pirates back here.”</p><p>“Then we found these disguises and snuck around, looking for you.” Goofy added, holding up a fake beard. “And here we are!”</p><p>“And how exactly do you plan to get us out of here?” Donald replied, stepping out of his jail cell.</p><p>“Oh don’t worry about that, I’ve got a plan. Ya see on the way in here we saw that these pirates put their gunpowder storage right next to the dock where they keep their ship, which they call the black oyster by the way, and the interceptor is docked just off shore. And with most of the pirates celebrating their newest plunder in the middle of the island…”</p><p>Donald grinned, he knew where Mickey was going with this. “So the plan is to blow up their ship as a diversion and then make a run for the interceptor while they’re caught off guard?”</p><p>Mickey nodded. “Bingo.”</p><p>“Well let’s get going then!”</p><p>The trio soon liberated the rest of the crew from the prison cells, each and everyone of them giving their utmost thanks for the rescue, and moved out. One would think that sneaking an entire navy squadron through a hostile island full of pirates without being spotted would be an incredibly difficult task, if not impossible. Luckily, since most of the pirates were busy drinking and partying in the middle of the island, the amount of patrols were fairly light and swiftly dispatched by the sailors who overwhelmed the zombies with sheer numbers.</p><p>Even so, it didn’t make the whole ordeal any less nerve wracking. The group couldn’t afford to make so much as a single mistake, if so much as a single pirate managed to alert the others then they’d be done for.</p><p>Luckily, fortune seemed to be smiling upon them (something that almost never happened to Donald) and they managed to make it safely back to the interceptor without being spotted by anyone. Even more conveniently, there didn’t seem to be too many guards on the ship itself, just a couple stationed on the docks as watch; if they all rushed the pirates, they would be able to easily overwhelm them.</p><p>But they had a pirate ship to blow up; leaving was good, making sure the pirates couldn’t come after them was better.</p><p>“Okay here’s the plan.” Mickey started. “Donald, Goofy, and I will take a few bags of gunpowder from their storage and carry it onto the boat, then pile them up in a corner near the bottom, lead a trail out to the dock, and light it. The rest of you wait over there behind that building and keep watch. When the ship explodes, we all make a break for the ship and sail out of here. By the time the pirates get it under control we should be long gone.”</p><p>The rest of the group nodded and quickly got to their position. Each of the three sailors grabbed a barrel of gunpowder and hauled it aboard the black oyster, which was also oddly absent of any guards much to Donald’s suspicion.</p><p>Mickey and Goofy quickly disappeared to the lower decks with Donald bringing up the rear, but before he could join them he heard a voice say:</p><p>“Did you really think nobody would notice an empty jail after a raid?”</p><p>Donald spun around to come face to face with a rather well dressed sparrow with dreadlocks and a tri-peaked hat sitting on his head, a frown on his beak and a glowing sword clutched in his left hand. The fact that this pirate wasn’t a zombie like the others gave Donald a fairly decent idea of who this was.</p><p>Donald tossed the barrel over his shoulder where it rolled down the stairs to the others, getting a rather confused response.</p><p>“Donald? Is everything okay up there?” Goofy’s voice came out from the lower decks.</p><p>“Everything’s fine!” Donald replied, never taking his eyes off the pirate. “I’ll keep an extra watch up here while you guys place the barrels.”</p><p>“Alrighty then!”</p><p>Seeing as his friends’ concerns were quelled, the last thing he needed was for them to get caught up in this fight, Donald turned to properly address the pirate captain.</p><p>“So, you must be Jack.”</p><p>“<b>Captain</b> Jack to you sailor. And yes I am, the most feared pirate in the pacific ocean.”</p><p>“I’ve been up and down the pacific for years and I’ve never heard of you.” Donald cheekily replied.</p><p>That seemed to grate on Jack’s nerves. “Well now you have and you’d better make sure you remember it, after all you’ll be joining my crew soon enough.”</p><p>“That’s not going to happen.” Donald growled. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”</p><p>“HA! You’ve got spirit sailor!” Jack laughed. “You know what? Just for that, I’ll give you a sporting chance.”</p><p>The pirate produced a second sword from seemingly nowhere and tossed it over to Donald who caught it out of the air by the hilt. The duck adopting a gaze of confusion.</p><p>“Here’s the deal mate, if you can defeat me in a duel I’ll let you and all your little navy buddies go free.”</p><p>“And if I lose?” Donald replied.</p><p>Jack grinned sadistically. “Well then I’ll gut you like a bleedin’ fish, set an example to the rest not to cross me.”</p><p>Donald readied himself in a combat stance, sword pointed towards his opponent. “Alright, let’s do this.”</p><p>“That’s what I like to hear.”</p><p>The pirate rushed forward at inhuman speeds, closing the distance between him and Donald within seconds. The poor duck was barely able to react in time to block his attack, the swords clashing against each other. Once the initial startlement wore off, Donald leaned in and shoved the pirate away to give himself breathing room before going on the attack and swinging his sword at Jack only to be similarly blocked by the pirate.</p><p>“Hmm, impressive. This is going more fun than I thought.” Jack muttered before taking another swing at Donald.</p><p>The duo danced across the deck this way, swords swinging and clashing but neither landing a hit as they moved around. Each possessing their own edge in the fight between Jack’s speed and Donald’s strength, but neither completely outclassed the other forcing them into a near constant stalemate consisting of near misses and whiffs. Despite that, Donald still remained confident he could win; this wasn’t the first sword fight he’s gotten involved in and it sure wasn’t going to be the last, besides he could see Jack starting to lose his composure as the force of every swing began to tire him out.</p><p>Finally the pirate made a crucial mistake, which Donald capitalized on and sliced a good potion of Jack’s side which left a dripping wound that stained his jacket red.</p><p>Jack hissed in pain as he stumbled back, clutching his side while keeping up his guard. “Alright, I’ll give ya that one mate. But I’ve got a confession to make.”</p><p>Jack tossed the sword into his right hand. “I’m not left handed.”</p><p>The tables quickly turned on Donald as the pirate captain increased the speed of his strikes, overwhelming the sailor and forcing him on the defensive. Donald never even got the opportunity to make his own strikes, his sword busy continuously blocking Jack’s attacks while backing up in an attempt to close the distance.</p><p>Unfortunately for him, Donald wasn’t keeping an eye on what was behind him and ended up tripping on some poorly placed rope which caused him to stumble. This gave Jack the opening he needed to slash Donald across the chest, tearing his shirt and leaving a deep and painful cut, before kicking him square in the stomach and sending him to the floor of the deck.</p><p>Donald lied on the deck pitifully, the wind having been knocked out of him and his sword having skidded across the deck to a spot where it was hopefully out of reach. He was completely and utterly at the mercy of Captain Jack.</p><p>“It didn’t have to be this way sailor.” The sparrow said. “If you just stayed in your cell like a good little soldier you could have lived as my right hand man in my zombie crew, you certainly had the chops for it. I hate to waste good talent, but I’ve gotta make sure the others don’t try anything, sorry mate.”</p><p>Donald closed his eyes as Jack readied himself to land the final blow, preparing for the end….</p><p>Only it never came.</p><p>Instead, Donald heard a loud metallic bang followed up by a body slamming into the deck with a groan of pain. Opening his eyes, Donald’s beak nearly hit the floor as standing above him with an uncharacteristically serious look on his face and a dented frying pan in his hand was Goofy.</p><p>“Get away from my pal!” Goofy exclaimed.</p><p>Spotting Jack’s sword right next to him, Donald quickly snatched it up from his spot on the deck and threw the weapon over the side of the ship. Leading Jack to let out an anguished cry.</p><p>“NO! MY SWORD!” the pirate screamed before jumping off the ship after it, a loud splash sounding off shortly after.</p><p>Goofy quickly rushed over to his injured friend. “Ya okay Donald? He didn’t get ya too bad did he?”</p><p>“No, I think I can-UGH!” Donald attempted to get back on his feet only to immediately double over in pain, that cut may have been a lot deeper than he thought.</p><p>In response, Goofy hefted his friend up into his arms the way one would carry an infant. “Alright Mick! I got him, let’s get outta here!”</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, Donald could see Mickey nod and shatter a lit oil lamp onto the trail of gunpowder, igniting it in an instant.</p><p>“Go! Go! Go!” Mickey exclaimed as the three of them scrambled down the gangplank as quickly as they possibly could.</p><p>Donald knew that the explosion was going to be big, but he didn’t expect it to be as big as it was. When the gunpowder went off, it didn’t just blow a hole in the side of the ship, it sent a massive fireball spewing out of the Black Oyster that caused one of it’s masts to fall over and the remaining sails to catch on fire.</p><p>Yeah, there was no way those pirates were going to be able to follow them now.</p><p>As Mickey, Donald, and Goofy sprinted towards the interceptor they were happy to see that the rest of the crew was already safely aboard, making preparations to get the heck outta dodge.</p><p>“Hurry up boys! We’re already weighing anchor and I don’t want to have to leave ya behind!”</p><p>Mickey and Goofy doubled their pace, making onto the ship moments before the vessel lurched forwards and pulled out of the dock. And not a moment too soon as the shore was quickly swarmed with an army of zombie pirates who were rushing around in confusion, some trying in vain to save the Black Oyster from meeting a watery grave while others tried to get on the Interceptor before it pulled away only to be knocked off by the sailors waiting for them.</p><p>Eventually, the battleship pulled away from the island, safely out of the undead pirates’ reach. Becoming nothing more than a speck on the horizon, with bad memories being the only evidence that it was ever even there.</p><p>Finally, Donald let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that was close. I sure hope we don’t run into them again.”</p><p>“Doubtful.” Captain Nemo replied, approaching the group from behind. “When we pull into port I am going to launch a full scale manhunt for Captain Jack and the rest of his crew to ensure this never happens again. Right after I see to it that you three all receive the medal of honor.”</p><p>“What?!” Mickey exclaimed, adopting a look of confusion with his compatriots following suit.</p><p>“I saw you three up there: you and Goofy refusing to leave us behind and devising a successful rescue plan all by yourselves, and Donald taking on the pirate captain in direct combat in order to buy us more time. You’re heroes and you shall be recognized as such.”</p><p>The three sailors were frozen in a state of shock, their expressions one of disbelief. A medal of honor, the highest award that can be granted to a service member and they were all getting one.</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald was struck with an epiphany: this was what he was missing, the rush of adventure and the sweet taste of victory that came with the aftermath of it all. He had come to the navy to find himself, to find his place in the world, and Donald had finally figured out who he was: an adventurer and a hero, one who would put his life on the line to protect the people he cared about. Being a sailor was a nice break from that life, but it was time for him to get back to basics.</p><p>And surprisingly enough, he was content with such an idea.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*****************</p>
</div><p>“So it is my honor to be here today to present these distinguished awards to Sergeant Donald Duck, Private Mickey Mouse, and Private Goofy Goof for their courage and valor in service to the US naval forces.” Said President Clarence Nash.</p><p>The entire crowd erupted in applause as the president fixed each of the medals onto the trio’s chests, who maintained stoic expressions but were jumping for joy on the inside.</p><p>Once the presentation was over, the mouse, duck, and dog made their way off the stage to join the rest of their families for the after party.</p><p>“Gawrsh, I still can’t believe it. A medal of honor.” Goofy remarked, looking down at the piece of brass with a glint in his eye. “I never even dreamed I’d ever get one.”</p><p>“You said it pal. I can’t wait to show this to the folks, they must be so-”</p><p>Mickey was cut off by a shrill voice cutting through the air. “MICKEYYYYYY!!”</p><p>Out of seeming nowhere, Mickey was tackled to the ground by a blur of red and black. Donald’s first instinct was to go on the attack, assuming his friend was in trouble, but the fire in his belly was quickly put out when he realized that Mickey was merely on the receiving end of an extremely enthusiastic hug.</p><p>Getting a better look, Donald realized that Mickey had been sacked by what looked like a female version of himself; complete with red and white polka dot skirt and matching bow, along with a set of yellow heels.</p><p>“Oh I missed you so, so MUCH!” the female mouse said, finally getting off Mickey after smothering him in affection.</p><p>“Aw, I missed you too Minnie.” Mickey said with a pronounced blush. “Oh, where are my manners? Guys, this is Minnie Mouse, my girlfriend; Minnie, this is Donald Duck and Goofy, my navy buddies.”</p><p>Minnie smiled and extended her arm for a handshake. “Well any friend of Mickey is a friend of mine, it’s nice to meet you both!”</p><p>As Donald shook Minnie’s hand, he heard another voice call out; this one far more childish than the previous one.</p><p>“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”</p><p>A small two year old dog ran over to Goofy’s side and lifted his arms, hopping in place. Goofy merely smiled and hefted the kid into his arms. “Hey Maxie, how have ya been?”</p><p>Max started babbling off about the various things he’s done while his father was gone and Donald’s heart melted at the sight; Goofy was right, Max was adorable.</p><p>The duck didn’t get much time to observe the scene as two strong arms wrapped around his midsection and brought him into a bone crushing hug, Donald would have been more alarmed if he didn’t know exactly who was behind him.</p><p>“I can’t believe it, my brother is a navy hero! Way to go Donnie!” Della exclaimed, spinning her brother around in her arms. “And here I thought the navy was going to be boring for you.”</p><p>“Easy now lass, I know you’re happy to see him but I don’t think Donald is supposed to be turning that particular shade of blue.” Said Scrooge approaching the two from behind.</p><p>Della looked up to see that she was, indeed, depriving her brother of all oxygen and quickly released him, letting him take in several deep breaths. That’s about when Donald noticed something particular: Scrooge was crying.</p><p>“Uncle Scrooge? Is something wrong?”</p><p>“N-no. It’s just that….” Scrooge rubbed his eyes. “I’m so proud of ya lad. It seems like only yesterday you were writing terrible songs in your bedroom and now look at ya, a medal of honor recipient. You’ve grown up so much since I first took you in, I-I…”</p><p>Donald put a hand on his uncle’s shoulder. “Thanks Uncle Scrooge.”</p><p>The billionaire wrapped his arms around Donald and gave him another hug, this one far gentler than Della’s.</p><p>“I’m glad yer safe. Captain Jack is no lightweight after all, I would know.” Scrooge whispered</p><p>Donald rolled his eyes, of course Scrooge had fought him, why wouldn’t he have?</p><p>Before the embrace could go any further, the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat brought them out of it. Looking over they saw a dove in a sharply tailored suit standing a mere few feet away.</p><p>“I hate to interrupt such a sweet family moment, but you’re Donald Duck right?” The dove asked.</p><p>Donald nodded his head. “Who’s asking?”</p><p>“Hi, I’m agent Coulson. I’m a government official and I need to speak to you about your reassignment, it’s kind of urgent.”</p><p>“Reassignment?” Donald said with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“Some individuals higher up in the chain of command read the mission report about your run in with the pirates along with your encounter with the sea monster. They were impressed with your abilities and wanted to offer you a new position in a special field.” Explained agent Coulson. “I’d tell you more about it now but the nature of the position is highly confidential so we’ll need to speak in private.”</p><p>Donald looked back towards Scrooge and Della who simply waved him off.</p><p>“We waited all year to see you again, we can wait a few more minutes. Go ahead.” said Della.</p><p>Donald nodded and followed the agent into a more secluded area of the park, where the dove then produced a manilla folder from his jacket and handed it to Donald.</p><p>“So Donald Duck, tell me...have you ever heard of an organization called S.H.U.S.H.?”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*****************</p>
</div><p>Webby’s jaw nearly popped off right then and there, Donald Duck was a secret agent too? He worked for S.H.U.S.H.? Did Granny know about this?</p><p>Before any of the kids could ponder this new development further, they felt sea water start to wash up against their feet and they realized that the tide had started to come in.</p><p>Knowing that they couldn’t stay in their secluded hide out any longer. The group packed up and headed back to join the others, seeing that Donald and Penumbra were now wrestling in the sand with Della cheering them on and Launchpad mysteriously absent.</p><p>As they made their way over however, the eldest of the group couldn’t help but feel a nagging thought at the back of his mind. His uncle had done all of these incredible things, had lived a life straight out of an action movie, but none of them ever even knew their whole lives.</p><p>Huey hated to admit it, but his uncle Donald was starting to feel more and more like a stranger to him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And so concludes the Navy arc. Sorry this took so long, School really started kicking my butt and I had to focus on getting a handle on my assingments and midterms; along with a brief funk I had to get out of, but I'm back now!</p><p>and yes I know in Double Duck is part of the office and not S.H.U.S.H. but I thought doing the latter would be a fun way of further connecting him to the ducktales universe. Which will begin next chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Double Duck</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>and so starts Donald's career at S.H.U.S.H. </p><p>Buckle up everyone, this is going to be the craziest arc yet...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Huey couldn’t sleep.</p><p>He had been staring at the ceiling for a good hour now, the sound of his brother’s gentle snores being the only sound in the room, and no matter how much he tried he couldn’t shake the feelings he’s been having lately.</p><p>Huey was a very logical person, he liked order, reason, and most of all stability. It wasn’t that he feared the unknown, After all most great discoveries were made leaping headfirst into it, it’s just that he hated it when something threw him for a loop and shattered any perceptions of what he thought he knew about the world. It happened with the terrifirmians, it happened when they found out Dewey looking into mom, and it happened when they found that stupid journal.</p><p>Huey thought he had uncle Donald all figured out, he was the responsible parent, the one that could be a little- no, EXTREMELY overprotective but only because he wanted to keep the people he cared about safe. A father figure that loved the three of them more than anything else in the world: one that would bandage Dewey’s knees when a stunt went wrong, one that would comfort Louie when he had a bad dream in the middle of the night, one that would go to every single one of Huey’s junior woodchuck meetings to show his support. Uncle Donald was their boring old dad who was trying his absolute best to raise them right, that’s who Huey thought their uncle was.</p><p>But ever since they found that journal, such an image was completely demolished and replaced with something new: Uncle Donald was a hero that repelled an alien invasion, a sailor that went toe to toe with a pirate lord, and now a secret agent too; he had lead this whole other life that nobody knew about, not even Uncle Scrooge or mom. Everything Huey thought he knew about Uncle Donald was quickly being unraveled and he hated it.</p><p>‘How many secrets has he been keeping from us?’ Huey thought to himself. ‘From everyone? Why didn’t he tell us?’</p><p>Huey sighed and sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, he couldn’t stay up all night thinking about this; he had a Junior Woodchuck meeting tomorrow and the last thing he needed was to show up half dead on his feet.</p><p>The red triplet slowly climbed down the triple bunk bed, taking great care not to wake up his brothers. Dewey could sleep through a hurricane but Louie was far lighter of a sleeper, a fact Huey had rather painfully learned a few years back during a camping trip incident.</p><p>‘A glass of warm milk should help, that always manages to relax me.’ Huey thought to himself as he made his way out of their room and down the hall towards the kitchen.</p><p>To his surprise, when he reached his destination, Huey found that he wasn’t the only one suffering a sleepless night; Webby was already in the kitchen, placing a glass of milk into the microwave with a rather exhausted look on her face.</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep either huh?” Said Huey.</p><p>His adopted sister looked over to Huey with a tired smile, shaking her head.</p><p>“Wanna talk about it?”</p><p>Webby sighed. “It’s just so exciting, I always knew Donald Duck was an incredible adventurer but an agent of S.H.U.S.H.? He might have gone on a few missions with granny! I just couldn’t wait to read it later so…”</p><p>It was at that moment that Huey noticed the journal was sitting open on the counter, a few pages ahead of where they left off yesterday. Huey narrowed his eyes.</p><p>“Webby.”</p><p>“I’m sorry! I had to know what happened next! I was going to tell the rest of you all about it I swear!” Webby pleaded.</p><p>Huey looked back at the journal, he had to admit as much as his uncle’s double life bothered him he couldn’t help but be fascinated by it at the same time and the more he read the more invested he became in learning as much as he could about his uncle’s past. Eventually, his natural curiosity won out over his moral qualms.</p><p>“Well...it wouldn’t hurt to read ahead just a little bit, right? It’s not like we’re keeping anything from Dewey and Louie.” Huey said, plucking the book off the counter.</p><p>Webby smiled and sat town with Huey at the kitchen table, the eldest triplet flipping the journal open to the last point.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>When he first heard the job agent Coulson was offering him, Donald had to do a double take to ensure that he had heard the dove correctly. A secret agent? They wanted him to be a spy? Granted he wasn’t going to get the job right out of the gate, there was a whole recruitment process that he had to go through to prove that he could handle being a S.H.U.S.H. agent but the mere fact that he had gotten his foot in the door at all was a feat in itself.</p><p>He was a bit hesitant at first, he was Donald Duck after all, the one who got all the bad luck. But then he thought back to his time as Paperinik and figured that if he could hack it as a superhero, he could hack it as a spy. How different could they be?</p><p>Once he accepted the offer, Donald was whisked away to the S.H.U.S.H. training facility at Whispering Rock summer camp. Initially Donald was confused as to why they would be training spies at an old run down summer camp, until he realized that it was the perfect cover for such activities.</p><p>Donald spent six months there, being instructed in all things S.H.U.S.H. from espionage to bomb defusal to combat training amongst other things. Which Donald took to like...some sort of semi-aquatic bird to water; years of adventuring with Scrooge and acting as Paperinik meant he was already fairly skilled to begin with, but S.H.U.S.H’s training took that natural skill and refined it which made Donald far more dangerous than he was before.</p><p>Once he had completed his training and became a full fledged S.H.U.S.H. agent, being granted the codename ‘Double Duck’, Donald received a full load out of S.H.U.S.H. equipment including a tuxedo with bulletproof weave, a tranquilizer gun (originally he was to receive a silenced pistol, but Donald opted for something less lethal), a communicator watch, and a luxury car outfitted with all manner of spy gadgets. The last item on that list is what led to his current grievance.</p><p>“A NINE HUNDRED DOLLAR PARKING TICKET?!! THAT’S RIDICULOUS!” Donald screamed.</p><p>Apparently some genius in the agency had left said car parked next to a fire hydrant for three days while Donald was packing up and traveling to his new apartment in St. Canard, home to S.H.U.S.H. 's headquarters.</p><p>“Hey, maybe you should watch where you park that hot rod of yours next time.” The clerk gruffly replied. “So pay up!”</p><p>Donald grit his teeth. “But I didn’t park it there! My friend did!”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter, it’s your car, registered in your name, so it’s your responsibility when it’s an accessory to a crime.”</p><p>“No! I refuse to pay this!” Donald shouted, throwing the ticket to the ground.</p><p>“If you don’t pay this in three days, every cop in town will be on your sorry butt.” sneered the clerk.</p><p>Before Donald could argue any further, he glanced at his watch and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Oh phooey! I’m late for work! This isn’t over, I’ll be back!”</p><p>Donald quickly hopped into his car and sped down the street, weaving through traffic and drifting around curves, it was a miracle he didn’t get another ticket for reckless driving. Miraculously, Donald made it to S.H.U.S.H. headquarters with only moments to spare, screeching into the underground parking lot and scrambling into the building as fast as he could.</p><p>Donald came to a sudden halt in front of the receptionist’s desk, taking a moment to catch his breath before saluting. “Agent Double Duck, reporting for duty.”</p><p>“Oh, you must be the new recruit Agent Coulson told us about. Well go on ahead, director J Gander Hooter is waiting for you in his office; just take the elevator down the hall to the top floor and go straight ahead, his office is clearly labeled, you can’t miss it.” The blonde secretary cheerily replied.</p><p>Donald nodded and quickly jogged down the hall, taking the first elevator he saw.</p><p>Despite the office being ‘clearly labeled’ it took ten minutes for Donald to find it, passing through several hallways and wrong turns before he found that the door was right back where he started, directly across from the elevator he had come out of originally.</p><p>Entering the room, Donald found himself inside of an extremely well furnished office that put Scrooge’s own at the money bin to shame: carved wood desk, fancy leather chairs, a liquor cabinet situated in the corner of the room along with several paintings. At the desk sat a short, balding, Duck in a light brown suit with a red vest, tan shirt, and orange tie to complete the ensemble, a pair of glasses balanced on his beak. When Donald shut the door, the small duck looked up and smiled.</p><p>“Hello there, agent Double Duck I presume?” Said the Duck.</p><p>“Yes sir.” Donald replied, sitting down in one of the leather chairs.</p><p>“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is J. Gander Hooter and let me be the first to welcome you to S.H.U.S.H. I hope the accommodations we’ve provided you with are to your liking?”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “I can’t complain, it’s small but it’s comfortable.”</p><p>“Excellent. Now let’s get down to it, normally we’d get you started on office work before putting you out in the field but given your skill set and test scores, I believe it would be better to have you an active field agent as soon as possible.”</p><p>“Really? Thanks!”</p><p>Before Hooter could go any further, a small intercom on his desk suddenly crackled to life with the secretary’s voice on the other end.</p><p>“Director, agent K is here for you.”</p><p>Director Hooter pressed a button on the intercom “yes, go ahead and send her up.”</p><p>“Agent K?” Donald asked with slight confusion. “Who’s that?”</p><p>“Why your new partner of course, you didn’t think we’d send a new recruit out on their own for his first mission did you?”</p><p>Donald looked behind him at the sound of the door opening a few minutes later and his jaw hit the floor.</p><p>Standing there was possibly the most beautiful duck he had ever seen in his life: an absolute bombshell with curves in all the right places, a flawless face framed perfectly by her raven hair, and a purple jacket over a pink tank top that she wore oh so well. Donald was completely rendered speechless by her appearance as he approached the two of them,</p><p>“Hello, Director. You wanted to see me?” The female duck said, taking a seat next to Donald.</p><p>“Yes agent K, I wanted to introduce you to your new field partner: Donald Duck, codename Double Duck. Double Duck, meet Kay K, one of our top field agents and your new mentor and partner.”</p><p>Kay K let out a groan. “Oh come on, why do I always have to get paired up with the rookies? They’ll only slow me down, you know that.”</p><p>“You’ll do as you’re told Kay, that’s an order. Besides, this one is a bit different from the others I assure you.” Director Hooter said, motioning to Donald who still seemed enraptured by Kay’s beauty.</p><p>Kay let out an angry huff in reply. “That’s exactly what you said about Clouseau and look how that turned out, he completely bungled the Pink Panther mission.”</p><p>“Regardless of your personal feelings Kay, my decision has been made and that’s final!” Exclaimed the agency director, slamming his hand onto the desk which seemed to finally bring Donald back into reality. “Now let’s get to your briefing.”</p><p>The small duck slid a file onto the desk. “Recently some rather sensitive documents were stolen out from one of our other agents regarding some of S.H.U.S.H.’s secrets, intel suggests it’s being held on the thirty-fifth floor of the Rockford hotel in suite 87-b. Your mission is to infiltrate the hotel, recover the documents, and return them to headquarters, the only requirement is that you do it as discreetly as possible, this is a covert ops after all. Understand?”</p><p>Donald and Kay K nodded in response, although the former was still glancing at the latter out of the corner of his eyes.</p><p>“Good, now go see doctor Gizmo in the armory. He’ll outfit you two with the equipment you’ll need for this mission, best of luck to you.”</p><p>On that note, the two agents made their way out of the Director’s office with Donald following the more experienced Kay, assuming she knew where the armory was.</p><p>“So Kay-” Donald started, only for his voice to die in his throat when Kay immediately spun on her heel and jabbed a finger in his chest with an extremely annoyed expression on her face.</p><p>“Okay listen newbie, let’s get one thing straight. I know you might think that since you got through basic training and are a part of S.H.U.S.H. that you think you’re hot stuff, well you aren’t. I’ve seen too many new agents go in cocky and get their tailfeathers handed to them because they had no idea what they were doing. So just follow my lead, do what I say, and you might learn something.” Kay spat out. “Oh and another thing, don’t think just because the director paired us up that suddenly makes us friends, I’m the superior agent here and that makes me your boss. If you last more than two weeks with me, I might learn your name, until then you’re dead weight.”</p><p>Donald immediately scowled, any and all infatuation he had for this woman leaving his body in an instant. “Well excuse me for trying to be polite!”</p><p>The elevator dinged and opened its doors, Donald and Kay quickly walking inside.</p><p>“Hey, I’m just being honest. Not my fault you can’t handle the truth pal.”</p><p>The two of them spent the rest of the trip in the elevator bickering like a married couple and Donald couldn’t help but think, rather sarcastically:</p><p>‘Well this partnership is off to a great start!’</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>Once they received all the gadgets they needed from their resident mad scientist Gizmo, who was rather nice despite having a few screws loose, the duo headed out into downtown St. Canard to the hotel mentioned in the briefing. Unlike the elevator ride, the car trip was spent in silence save for the brief run down of the mission plan which suited Donald just fine, after his first impression of the woman he didn’t much care for having a conversation with her anyways.</p><p>The plan of attack was fairly straightforward: Kay would come in through the front entrance and charm her way past security, once she had gotten past the reception area, she would make her way up to the thirty-fifth floor and find room 87-b where she’d pick the lock on the hotel room to gain access, after which she would search the room for the documents and deal with any hostiles before making her way out with the package in tow.</p><p>And where was Donald during all this? Stuck on the adjacent roof where he’d have a clear vantage point to see into the hotel room through the massive windows taking up an entire side of the suite. He was outfitted with a com-line, a pair of binoculars, and a one-use burner phone in case of emergencies. The only job he had was to give support to Kay and warn her about any incoming goons. Although judging by how barren the hotel room was currently, Donald had a suspicion that Kay only put him up here to keep him out of her way.</p><p>That only served to annoy Donald even further, sure he was the new guy but how was he ever supposed to prove himself if Kay stuck him on the sidelines like this? He was Donald Duck, he knew he could hold his own in a fight and yet he was far away from the action while Kay K did the heavy lifting.</p><p>He was so caught up in his thoughts that he barely even noticed his earpiece come to life until it was literally screaming in his ear.</p><p>“DOUBLE DUCK!!!”</p><p>Donald finally snapped out of his inner thoughts. “Huh? What?”</p><p>“I said, is the room clear? I’ve been asking for a good three minutes now!”</p><p>Donald peered through his binoculars, scanning the windows and seeing that the hotel room was completely empty, not a single person in sight. Which immediately made him suspicious, if someone stole classified documents from a super secret spy agency shouldn’t there be at least a few guards watching it?</p><p>“Yes. There’s nobody there at all but-” Donald was cut off by Kay.</p><p>“Great, breaching the room in three, two, one…”</p><p>From his spot on the adjacent building, Donald could see Kay kick the door into the hotel room and quickly make her way inside. Almost immediately Donald’s earpiece went haywire and started emitting large amounts of static, as if something was jamming the signal. Which made Donald even more suspicious.</p><p>“Kay? Kay do you read me? Hello?” Donald shouted into his earpiece to no avail, Kay didn’t even seem to acknowledge his communication attempt.</p><p>Gazing through his binoculars again, Donald spotted something in one of the glass elevators on the side of the building: a squad of heavily armed men in ski-masks. Who just so happened to stop and get out on the thirty-fifth floor.</p><p>‘Oh no’ Donald thought to himself, he already knew that those thugs were likely sent to protect the stolen documents and if they found Kay K trespassing in the hotel room it would not end well for her; she was both outnumbered and outgunned. If that wasn’t bad enough, his jammed communication line meant he had no way of warning her of the incoming danger.</p><p>The duck started racking his brain for solutions, even if he double timed his pace there was no way he could make it up there in time to rescue her so that idea was out. He had the burner phone but who could he call? Kay didn’t have a phone on her (which was a massive oversight on their part) and even if she did he doubted the signal would even get through, S.H.U.S.H. was out too as they couldn’t dispatch agents fast enough to get down here, so what did that leave him.</p><p>‘Think Donald, who could get down here fast enough and be able to deal with those criminals…’</p><p>That’s when a bright idea popped into his head, it was a gamble but it just might work. Donald quickly punched a series of numbers into the phone and waited for the answer on the other end.</p><p>“City clerk’s office.” the voice on the other end said</p><p>“Hello? This is Donald Duck.”</p><p>“Ah, Mr.Duck. Are you calling to pay your fine?”</p><p>Donald smirked, this was going to be cathartic “You wish. Not only am I not going to pay, but I’m calling to let you know that I’m triple-parked on a pedestrian crosswalk by a fire hydrant during street cleaning hours! I’m parked in the most illegal no-parking zone you’ve ever seen and since I’m not afraid of you, I’ll even tell you where I am!”</p><p>Donald could hear the clerk growling in rage on the other end of the phone.</p><p>“I’m on the thirty fifth floor of the Rockford hotel, waiting for you in room 87-b!”</p><p>“THAT’S IT! It’s over for you mr.Duck! In one minute the entire St.Canard police department is coming after you!”</p><p>“That’s just what I was hoping for, goodbye.” Said Donald, hanging up the phone.</p><p>The clerk wasn’t exaggerating, immediately an entire squadron of police cars started pulling up in front of the hotel, the boys in blue rushing out of their cars into the building.</p><p>Looking through his binoculars, he saw that Kay was taking cover behind a couch as several of the men with guns had her cornered. Only for one of them to look out the window and panic, turning to the rest of his friends and pointing outside to the numerous police cars; likely assuming the worst, the men quickly rushed out of the room in a hurry, leaving behind a very confused looking Kay K who followed suit shortly afterwards.</p><p>“Phew. That was a close one...I should probably go down there and tell the police some kind of cover story before I really get in trouble.” Donald remarked.</p><p>Once he got to street level, he was immediately spotted by one of the St.Canard police officers.</p><p>“Donald Duck!”</p><p>“That’s me”</p><p>The officer pulled out a set of handcuffs. “You’re under arrest for severe parking violations!”</p><p>Donald adopted a look of false confusion. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>“You made a call about being parked in the most illegal fashion I’ve ever heard in my ten years on the force!”</p><p>“No I didn’t, in fact I didn’t even drive today. I rode with my coworker, whose car is parked right over there very legally.” Donald said, pointing to the black muscle car behind him.</p><p>Then it was the officer’s turn to look confused. “And will this coworker confirm your story?”</p><p>“Of course she will.” Donald spotted Kay coming out of the building. “Look, there she is now. Hi Kay!”</p><p>Kay K came over to Donald. “Donald? What’s going on here?”</p><p>“Apparently the St. Canard police department received a call from me about being parked illegally, but that’s impossible because I was riding with you and I don’t even have a cell phone on me.” Donald replied, giving his fellow agent a subtle wink that she quickly picked up on.</p><p>“Oh yes, We were carpooling today. I was just finishing up a meeting and sent Donald to wait by the car for me.” Kay explained.</p><p>“But...who made the call then?” The police officer asked, scratching his head.</p><p>“I don’t think anybody did, I think the city clerk has some kind of grudge against me. I bet he told you I’ve got an unpaid parking ticket on top of everything else.”</p><p>“Hmm, maybe we should look into that. In any case, sorry for the mild inconvenience, you’re free to go.”</p><p>Donald nodded and hopped into Kay’s car with his partner doing the same, the former of the two smirking when he saw the gang of thugs from earlier being hauled out of the hotel in handcuffs. Something that Kay noticed.</p><p>“You called them didn’t you? The police.”</p><p>“Yep, I saw those guys coming up to your position and with no way to warn you I had to improvise. I figured after I mouthed off to the city clerk this morning, he’d be itching for the chance to get me; so I gave him one.”</p><p>“Goading the police into chasing after a false report in order to get the real criminals captured. Impressive.” Kay said with a more genuine smile. “You really saved my butt back there, maybe you aren’t dead weight after all.”</p><p>Donald smiled.</p><p>“Hey, don’t go getting a big head. Just because you managed to get lucky on your first mission doesn’t mean you’re on my level yet, you’ve still got a long way to go before I’ll be willing to call you my partner.”</p><p>“Oh I don’t know about that, I’m full of surprises Kay.”</p><p>“We’ll see about that.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>And see she did, for that day was where a beautiful partnership was born between the two of them.</p><p>Donald very quickly rose up the ranks of S.H.U.S.H. to become one of their top agents. His brute strength and unorthodox solutions to problems proved to be an invaluable asset to the agency and he was put on more and more important missions as a result: foiling assassinations of political figures, breaking up spy rings in forigen governments, and asset acquisition. He even got to work with the legendary Agent 22 on several occasions.</p><p>But more importantly, he earned Kay K’s respect.</p><p>For their first month Kay maintained a strict level of professionalism around Donald, only maintaining the minimal amount of social interaction that was required for their current mission. But as time went on and Donald proved that he was more than capable of keeping up with the more experienced agent in the field she gradually began to warm up to him. Growing closer and closer to the duck with each passing day, becoming less like a coworker and more like a friend, which is when the flirting started to begin.</p><p>It was mild at first, a few jokes here and there occasionally broken up by Kay giving him a firm slap on the butt when he did a particuarly good job. Which got Donald blushing every. Single. Time.</p><p>Eventually however Kay started becoming much more forward in that regard, being a bit more physically affectionate by giving him a kiss on the cheek for good luck, spending more time with him when they were off duty, and even giving him completely genuine compliments about things completely unrelated to his skills as a spy. It was through this that Donald realized Kay might have had a romantic interest in him.</p><p>However it wasn’t until they went undercover as a married couple to steal something called the ‘turn everything evil-inator’ from a mad scientist in Drusselstein that Donald figured out he might reciprocate those feelings.</p><p>Looking past the obvious aesthetically pleasing aspects of Kay K, there was something about her personality that just lured Donald in: Her confident demeanor that made it seem like she was always in control of the situation, her utter loyalty to not only S.H.U.S.H. but to the people she cared about the most, and her intellect that frequently got both herself and Donald out of a tough spot. All of it came together to produce someone that Donald fell for, hard.</p><p>After a full year of working for S.H.U.S.H., Donald decided to bite the bullet and tell Kay how he felt about her.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>“Donald had a girlfriend? And she was his spy partner? Ooh, I have so many quest…” Webby trailed off when she noticed that Huey was nowhere near as overjoyed as she was, in fact he actually looked to be a lot worse off than before.</p><p>Huey had assumed that reading a bit more through his uncle’s journal he thought he might have gotten a few more answers and gotten a grip on Donald’s past; but after reading through his secret agent life, Huey was only left with even more questions about uncle Donald’s identity.</p><p>‘Uncle Donald had a girlfriend? He dated someone before Daisy? How serious did their relationship get? Why didn’t he tell us about Kay? Did something happen to her?’ These thoughts and many more shot through Huey’s mind, which flat out couldn’t comprehend that the uncle Donald who stayed up late teaching him how to sew his first few patches onto his sash was the same uncle Donald that was a super spy that dated his partner.</p><p>A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of what felt like a minor panic attack, looking behind him, Huey saw Webby looking at him with a concerned look on her face.</p><p>“Look I know it might seem crazy finding out all this new stuff about your uncle, it was the same way for me when I found out granny was a S.H.U.S.H. agent. But no matter what he did in the past or how crazy it was, none of it changes the fact that Donald Duck is still your uncle and he loves you. Just like how the fact that my granny is a spy doesn’t change the fact that she’s the world’s greatest grandma.”</p><p>Huey calmed down considerably, Webby did have a point, all of the stuff in the journal were events that already happened and none of it would change who uncle Donald was now. Nevertheless, the junior woodchuck couldn’t shake the feeling of slight betrayal at the fact that Donald kept so much hidden from him and his brothers all of these years.</p><p>It wouldn’t keep him from digging deeper, he needed answers and he was going to get them one way or another.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Let me be clear, unlike canon, Kay K is NOT going to start off as a double agent working for herself. She's a good guy through and through.</p><p>Also I was originally going to dedicate a whole chapter to Donald's training with a bunch of kingsman: the secret service, references. But after getting half way through it I realized that the chapter was a complete clunker that added nothing and decided to scrap it in favor of cutting directly to Donald's first day.</p><p>Oh also, 50K WORDS BABY!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. you only love twice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Something’s bothering you.” Violet stated, matter-of-factly.</p><p>“What? No, I’m fine. What gave you that idea?”Huey nervously replied.</p><p>“Well not only did you use an anchor hitch knot instead of a clove hitch knot to tie down your tent but you also somehow managed to tie your neckerchief into it.”</p><p>The young woodchuck looked down to see that he had, indeed, tangled the bandana that was formerly around his neck into the improper knot he used to tie his tent into the ground. Sheepishly blushing, Huey set to work undoing his mistake.</p><p>It was the Junior Woodchuck’s monthly camping trip up in the Okey Pinoke forests that went all weekend and truly tested each and every member’s know-how in their wilderness survival skills, a test that Huey was uncharacteristically failing. He had been making small mistakes left and right: forgetting to properly seal his backpack, using the wrong type of sticks to attempt to start a fire, and even misreading the map he brought along with him. All things Violet Sabrewing managed to pick up on, only because she had an eye for detail; it’s not like she was watching Huey’s every move from afar like some lovesick puppy, nope not at all.</p><p>And she could trace all of his mistakes to a single root cause: something was distracting him. It was the only reasonable explanation after all, Huey making so many sloppy mistakes despite being one of the most experienced junior woodchucks in the group and constantly getting lost in his own thoughts to the point that he seemed to be dozing off on more than one occasion. There was something on his mind that kept causing it to wander.</p><p>As to what exactly had been occupying his mind as of late, well that was a mystery Violet hadn’t quite cracked yet.</p><p>“Look, I’m just having an off day today. There’s nothing wrong and I’m not keeping any secrets, just let it go.” Huey replied, finally having fixed his knots.</p><p>That sentence immediately sent up numerous red flags for a variety of reasons, but Violet didn’t get the chance to press Huey any further as he wandered off to join the rest of the group for the s’mores roast. Before she could join him however, Violet spotted something inside of Huey’s open pack: it looked like an old, worn out journal. It wasn’t Huey’s junior woodchuck guide, sure the book was a little beat up but Huey never let that book out of his sight if he could help it, not to mention the colors and proportions were off.</p><p>Glancing at her surroundings to ensure that nobody was watching her, Violet pulled the journal out of Huey’s backpack and turned it over in her hand to properly examine it further. Noting that a specific page had been dogeared to mark its place.</p><p>Violet flipped open the front cover and read the title of the book “The secret biography of Donald Duck?”</p><p>Wasn’t that Huey’s uncle? The one with supernaturally bad luck? Why would he have a biography written about him? And why didn’t Huey ever bring it up?</p><p>Her curiosity officially piqued, Violet stealthily crawled into her tent and turned to the marked page. Intent on seeing just what was just so notable about Donald Duck that it got him his own biography, perhaps this is why Huey was so distracted today.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>If you had told Donald a few years ago that he’d wind up working as a secret agent, going undercover to infiltrate an underground luchador fight club based in Italy in order to apprehend a major crime boss wanted by Interpol. He would have called you down right insane.</p><p>And yet here he was, putting on a sequined mask, preparing to fight an opponent three times his size in a wrestling match in the name of global security. What a crazy day this was turning out to be.</p><p>The mission itself was straightforward enough: a crime lord named Koslov had been exposed in a massive counterfeiting scheme and had gained a warrant for his arrest from interpol, forcing him into hiding amongst his friends in the criminal underworld; in order to bring the man to justice, Interpol consulted S.H.U.S.H. who put Donald and Kay on the job. After doing a bit of digging, the duo found that Koslov had a major obsession with luchadors and was making an attempt to popularize the sport in Europe through several illegal fight clubs, one of which was located in Italy of all places. Once they confirmed through a few well placed moles that Koslov was going to be personally attending tonight’s match, Donald and Kay seized the opportunity to get the drop on him.</p><p>They’d go in with the cover story of Donald being a fresh fighter looking to make a name for himself and Kay K being his manager. After they got inside, Donald would step into the ring and create a diversion by putting on enough of a show to capture the attention of the entire club while Kay K located Koslov and ‘persuaded’ him to come with them.</p><p>While they did get a few side eyes going in, they still made it past the door without any major suspicion and were now sitting in the locker room preparing for the tasks ahead.</p><p>“Alright so your opponent is called ‘the gravedigger’, do you know why they call him that?” Said Kay.</p><p>“Because he buries his opponents?” Donald replied rhetorically.</p><p>“Yep. Try not to die out there, okay tiger?” Kay shot back, planting a soft kiss on Donald’s cheek. The duck immediately blushed in response to the show of affection.</p><p>“Uh-huh. S-Sure Kay, good luck with Koslov.”</p><p>The female duck nodded as the bell sounded off, Donald’s cue. He slipped on his mask and started making his way towards the arena</p><p>“Signore e signori! Ragazzi e ragazze! maniaci di tutte le età! Benvenuti nel Colosseo di sangue! Stiamo iniziando alla grande stasera con il leggendario scavatore di tombe che cerca di coronare una serie di dieci vittorie consecutive contro il suo avversario- "</p><p>Donald pushed his way through the doors to a cheering crowd. The glaring lights briefly blinding him as he approached the ring.</p><p>“Il sergente aereo! Proveniente dagli Stati Uniti d'America! questo piccolo avannotto sembra abbattere il colosso! Ci riuscirà o il becchino lo metterà a terra come tanti altri?!” The announcer boomed.</p><p>Donald stepped into the ring, finally able to truly size up his opponent for the first time. The reports that he was three times Donald’s size were wildly inaccurate...the massive crow was at least five times the size of the duck standing in the opposite corner, a hulking brute with an almost animalistic scowl on his beak that made it seem like he was ready to rip Donald’s throat out the second the bell rang and judging by the red stains on the mat, the duck wouldn’t have been his first victim.</p><p>But Donald simply ignored that along with the putrid stench of blood and sweat wafting through the air, he had a mission to complete and he was going to get it done. He just had to remember his training from the judo room and he’d be fine.</p><p>The bell went off and so did grave digger, charging at him like a raging bull with a massive roar. Donald waited until he got close enough and swiftly sidestepped, causing the crow to slam headfirst into the turnbuckle with an audible thwack, the wrestler stumbled back in a daze.</p><p>Donald could have easily laid him out flat right then and there, but that wasn’t the goal. He wasn’t there to win, he was there to put on a show for these people; so he backed away putting as much distance as he could between himself and the Gravedigger.</p><p>The massive bird’s fighting style quickly became apparent: he was a slugger through and through, relying on his massive strength and overwhelming presence to win the day, which left him with absolutely no technique whatsoever as the crow kept swinging wildly and trying to grapple Donald. The secret agent was smaller and had less force, but he was the better fighter and continued to dodge and weave around his swings, making the wrestler more and more enraged at his inability to strike his opponent which wasn’t helped by Donald landing jabs to his midsection when he had the chance. The duck even managed to throw the guy on the mat a few times.</p><p>After about three minutes of Donald dodging and weaving around this guy’s attacks, he heard his concealed comm line come to life with Kay’s voice on the other end.</p><p>“Koslov spotted me! He’s making a run for it, finish up in the ring and cut him off at the eastern entrance.” The raven haired agent said on the other end.</p><p>Donald nodded and turned his attention to the grave digger, who was looking fairly exhausted at this point. Capitalizing on this, Donald quickly ran over and sweeped out the legs from under the giant bird, sending him collapsing against the ropes; the duck then proceeded to grab ahold of one rope in each hand and swing himself around through the gap so that his feet slammed into the crow’s face with the entire weight of his body behind it, Gravedigger stumbled back and howled in pain; Finally Donald climbed up to the top rope and lept off, landing a devastating flying elbow to his poor opponent who dropped like a sack of bricks, the entire ring shaking at the sheer force of the massive man collapsing.</p><p>“Oh mio! l'ammiraglio volante rompe la serie di vittorie dello scavatore di tombe in modo assolutamente glorioso e- ehi aspetta, dove sta andando?!” The announcer exclaimed in confusion as Donald hopped out of the ring and took off in the direction Kay said Koslov was moving towards.</p><p>He was really regretting not committing the layout of the entire club to memory like Kay did, as instead of ending up at the eastern entrance, Donald somehow managed to wind up stumbling out of the backdoors of the place; but that was okay, he’d just have to-</p><p>Donald let out a squawk as a small car nearly ran him over, whipping past him and around the corner at a breakneck speed. Kay pulled up on a motorcycle to the stunned Duck shortly after.</p><p>“That was Koslov! Hop on, we can’t let him get away!”</p><p>Donald nodded and jumped onto the back of the bike, wrapping his arms around Kay’s midsection for support.</p><p>The male duck could only imagine what they looked like right now: a crime lord speeding through the streets of Rome in a small beetlebug car, being chased by a girl in a full leather outfit on a motorcycle with a luchadore clinging to her back. The whole thing feels like something you’d see out of a bad spy comedy, at least until a goon leaned out of the side of the car and started shooting at them.</p><p>Kay started swerving from side, dodging the gunfire and oncoming traffic. Which is when Donald noticed one of the flash bangs hanging off her belt.</p><p>Donald quickly formed a plan of attack. “Kay! Pull up next to him!”</p><p>“What?! I can’t hear you!” Kay shouted back.</p><p>“I SAID PULL UP NEXT TO HIM! I’VE GOT AN IDEA!”</p><p>His partner nodded and revved up the bike, the increase in speed allowing them to swiftly catch up to Koslov and his men. Seeing the window of opportunity open, along with one of the car’s windows, Donald snatched one of the flashbangs off of Kay’s belt, pulled the pin, and threw it into the car’s open window.</p><p>“GRANATA! GRANATA!” one of the thugs screamed as Kay and Donald pulled away from the car.</p><p>Seconds later, a bright flash followed by a large amount of smoke came from inside of the vehicle. The driver quickly lost control and swerved off the road, crashing straight into some poor sap’s cabbage stand.</p><p>“NO! I MIEI CAVOLI!” The stand owner screamed.</p><p>Skidding to a stop next to the wreck, Kay and Donald found that while three of Koslov’s men were lying unconscious in the car, the crime lord was nowhere to be seen. At least until they heard a pained groan coming from a nearby alley.</p><p>Dismounting the bike, Donald followed the sound and spotted Koslov limping away with a gun in his hand. The polar bear tried to fire off a few rounds only to discover that he was out of ammunition; letting the S.H.U.S.H. agent tackle him to the ground.</p><p>“Koslov! On the authority granted to me by Interpol, I’m placing you under arrest!” Donald barked, forcing the criminal's face to the floor of the dirty alley.</p><p>Within minutes, a mixture of the local cops and Interpol agents started swarming the area, the flash of red and blue lights bathing the area. After a brief misunderstanding with the initial officers who thought Donald was also a criminal, which Kay quickly cleared up, the two S.H.U.S.H. agents turned the crime boss over to the proper authorities and let them take over from there while Kay contacted director Hooter to give the mission report.</p><p>“Director? It’s agent Kay, mission was a success; we had a few hiccups but Koslov has been detained.”</p><p>“Excellent job! I knew I could trust you two for this.” The agency director exclaimed from the other end.</p><p>“Thanks Director, so how soon until we get back to headquarters?” Asked Donald, leaning on Kay to get into the frame of the communicator’s camera.</p><p>“About a week.”</p><p>Donald and Kay looked at each other in confusion for a moment before turning back to J Gander Hooter.</p><p>Luckily the director seemed to pick up on this and clarify. “Look, it’s been a year since Double Duck joined the agency and you two became partners. Since then you’ve led one of the best career records I’ve ever seen since I took over this agency, I’d say you’ve earned a vacation. Take the week off, enjoy Rome and spend some time relaxing together. S.H.U.S.H. can survive for a while without you.”</p><p>Well, they had been working pretty hard lately and a week-long vacation in Rome with Kay did sound very appealing, for certain...reasons.</p><p>Apparently Kay shared the same sentiment. “A free week in Rome with my favorite partner? How could I say no? We’ll see you later director, over and out.”</p><p>“So can we go back to the hotel now? This outfit is starting to chafe.” Donald said, tugging at his uniform.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>They were three days into their week-long vacation in Rome and Donald was having a wonderful time with Kay. After about a day of resting, the duo decided to do some good old fashioned sightseeing; it wasn’t that Donald hadn’t already been to Rome numerous times before, with all the ancient ruins and temples in the city Scrooge had dragged him and Della there numerous times for adventures. But those were always a frantic rush, either towards the promised treasure or away from whatever ancient creature they had managed to awaken; here, Donald was actually able to stop and appreciate the sights, take a look at the architecture and appreciate the work that went into creating it, the fact that the threat of bodily harm wasn’t hanging over his head just happened to be a bonus. Not to mention there was just something romantic about the whole thing.</p><p>He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but there was just something about this city that made for a great romantic setting. Perhaps it was the architecture, perhaps it was the local culture, or perhaps it was the people themselves; regardless, Donald and Kay K were really enjoying each other’s company during this whole outing. They stuck to each other’s sides like glue, frequently found themselves holding each others’ hands almost subconsciously, and more than one they were mistaken for a young couple; while the last instance was embarrassing every time it happened, he never once heard Kay deny such remarks.</p><p>Eventually the duo wandered their way into a large plaza area; street performers were scattered around, shoppers and tourists wandering the area, and there was a series of fountains that children were playing in. It was a surprisingly serene scene despite the large amounts of activity occurring, making it the perfect place for the two to sit down and rest their feet.</p><p>“This was nice.” Kay softly said, leaning against Donald. “I had a good time today.”</p><p>“Same here. S.H.U.S.H. Is great, but sometimes I need a break once in a while. Nobody shooting at us, no bombs to defuse, no assassinations to prevent, just a nice calm day on the town.” Donald added.</p><p>They stayed in that position for a while, simply leaning against each other in silence, enjoying the warmth that the other gave off. Soon enough however, one of the aforementioned street performers, or rather a group of them, set up near where the two ducks were sitting with a variety of instruments. The rooster who seemed to be leading the pack cleared his throat and started to sing.</p><p><em>“In Napoli, where love is king, when boy meets girl, here’s what they say: When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie, that’s amore! When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine, that’s amore!”</em> the rooster belted out, the rest of his companions playing their own instruments in perfect harmony.</p><p>A mischievous smile came onto Kay’s beak, who stood up from her seat and offered Donald a hand. “Care to dance?”</p><p>Donald smiled back, took her hand in his own, and brought his partner into a gentle waltz. Their bodies gently swaying to the rhythm of the music.</p><p>“Where’d you get moves like these?.” Kay chuckled.</p><p>“My uncle’s butler insisted on teaching me some ‘proper culture’ when I was little: it was either learn how to waltz or learn to play violin.” Donald replied.</p><p>“Well he certainly did a good job then, you’re really light on your feet.”</p><p>Donald couldn’t help but blush at the compliment, causing Kay to let out a laugh at the adorable sight.</p><p>The two soon became lost in the melody, gazing into each other’s eyes as they glided around. Several other couples around them soon joined in on their dance while onlookers admired the scene as a whole.</p><p>Then a thought came to Donald’s mind. “Kay?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Is...is this a date?”</p><p>“Do you need it to be?” The S.H.U.S.H. agent asked.</p><p>“Not need...but definitely want. I can live with a no, however I’d much prefer at least a maybe.”</p><p>Kay smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. “How about we see how the rest of this night goes lover boy?”</p><p>Right then, old Murphy decided to make an appearance in the form of an uneven tile on the plaza floor. With Donald being Donald, the duck naturally tripped over it and fell backwards, dragging Kay down with him with a yelp. He hit the ground hard with his partner collapsing right on top of him. It wasn’t until Donald shook off the pain that he realized the position he and Kay were in: she was right on top of him, looking dead into his eyes, with their beaks nearly touching.</p><p>Before Donald could even utter a word of apology, Kay darted forward and planted a small peck right onto the tip of his beak. Causing his face to immediately flush the most adorable shade of red and any coherent sentences to die on his lips.</p><p>“Come on you.” Kay said, pulling her dazed partner to his feet. “How about we head off to a nice pasta restaurant for dinner tonight? I’m pretty sure I saw a good place a while back.”</p><p>Donald simply nodded in reply, still caught up in the stupor that resulted from Kay kissing him just now, his hands touching the spot where her lips had been moments before.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>Dinner was lovely, they found a small little mom and pop bistro set up right on the river where they ended up sharing a large plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Despite the obvious set up for a certain romantic cliché, nothing truly eventful happened during the meal and Donald was perfectly fine with that; they just shared a bit of small talk and some light flirting by the riverside, it was cozy and relaxed.</p><p>In other words, the exact opposite of how Donald felt on the inside, this was his first date and he was all kinds of nervous, which is probably why he had more than a few glasses of red wine during dinner. By the end of it Donald was a tad on the tipsy side but thankfully still lucid enough to keep his head on straight, but Kay didn’t seem to notice or care on their trip back to the hotel.</p><p>A quick walk through the lobby, a short elevator ride, and the two arrived at their room. It was standard protocol for S.H.U.S.H. agents to share accommodations and this was no exception, the difference was that Donald was wrestling with all kinds of feelings that had begun to bubble up to the surface after the day he had just spent together with Kay and he seriously doubted sleeping in the same room was going to do anything to break the romantic tension in the air, if anything he was only going to get even more flustered and nervous.</p><p>The duck knew there was only one thing he could do, swallowing his anxiety and summoning up all the courage he could, he grabbed a hold of Kay’s arm right as they reached the door.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Kay asked</p><p>Donald ran a hand through the feathers on his head. “Listen Kay, we’ve known each other for over a year now and I feel like we’ve gotten really close since then. We’d trust each other with our lives and I just want you to know that I...I think I...might...sorta…”</p><p>Donald couldn’t seem to spit out those three little words, every time he tried he seemed to choke on the mere phrase as if his body was rejecting it. Seeing as her partner was in distress, Kay decided to take charge in this situation and give him a hand.</p><p>The female agent grabbed Donald’s cheeks in her hands and forced him into a deep kiss. The duck’s face immediately went red and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.</p><p>This wasn’t the chase kiss he received earlier in the plaza, this was one of passion and excitement where Kay’s beak massaged his own, her hand running through his feathers as she tried to push him closer and deepen the kiss even further.</p><p>When the initial shock wore off, Donald wrapped his arms around his partner and pulled her closer, one hand wandered up and down her back while another wove itself through her raven locks. He felt Kay’s tongue gently probe for entrance into his beak and Donald was all too happy to oblige, their tongues meeting in the middle and lashing against each other in a fury.</p><p>The kiss lasted all of about three minutes before the couple had to come up for air, a stray line of spit connecting them.</p><p>Kay seductively smiled and ran a hand along Donald’s cheek. “Now Double Duck, look at me. We’re both two young adults in the prime of their lives who are very clearly attracted to each other, how about we head inside and...do what feels natural.”</p><p>She whispered that last part right in his ear and it was like a switch had been flipped in the duck’s mind. In one swift move, Donald scooped up the raven haired beauty into a bridal carry and kicked open the door, carrying her over the threshold with an eager grin, Kay matching his expression as she draped an arm over the back of his neck.</p><p>The neighboring rooms would later complain about the noises coming from room 113, claiming that it sounded like an exorcism was occurring within between the screams and the bed impacting against the floors and walls.</p><p>It was the greatest night of Donald life, at least so far...</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>The sun's rays shone through the nearby window, finding their mark right onto the face of one Donald Fauntleroy Duck, S.H.U.S.H. agent extraordinaire.</p><p>He resisted at first, but the annoying glare given off by that big ball of fire dragged Donald into the waking world soon enough. Every single part of his body was sore and he felt half dead, but he supposed that was normal after what happened last night. Donald grinned, discarding his feelings of mild annoyance for one of satisfaction after a night well spent.</p><p>He turned over in bed, only to realize that there was a disturbing lack of warmth next to him and upon opening his eyes he realized that the other half of the bed was completely empty.</p><p>Shooting up in bed in a panic, Donald nearly had a heart attack right then and there, assuming the worst and already planning on how to track down Kay’s kiddnap-</p><p>“Well good morning sleepyhead.” Kay chimed, walking into view with a robe on her body and a steaming mug in each hand.</p><p>Donald let out a sigh of relief, Kay was fine, everything was okay. “Don’t scare me like that, I thought something bad had happened to you.”</p><p>Kay handed her partner one of the mugs. “Please, I’m not the kind of girl to have a one night stand, especially not after one like that.”</p><p>Donald smiled and chugged down his coffee, a godsend for his tired body. “Thanks, I’m glad you had a good time too.”</p><p>“For a virgin, you weren’t half bad.”</p><p>“Was it really that obvious?” Donald replied with a slight blush.</p><p>“Not really, I’m just great at reading people, you know that.”</p><p>Donald nodded and took another sip of coffee. “So...what happens now?”</p><p>“What do you mean?” asked Kay, shooting him a confused look.</p><p>“Are we dating now or…”</p><p>Kay leaned over and kissed Donald on his cheek. “Well I would hope so.”</p><p>“In that case, are you free around the holidays? My uncle hosts a yearly Christmas party and I’d really like you to come and meet my family.” Donald asked with all the awkwardness of a teenager asking his crush to prom</p><p>“I’d be honored to.”</p><p>The two of them spent the rest of the day basking in the afterglow of their newly formed relationship, blissfully unaware of the storm that lied on the horizon.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>“Hey Violet” said Huey, pushing his way into the tent. “You missed out on the campfire so I made sure to snag you a-”</p><p>Huey froze and dropped the smore onto the ground with a splat as his jaw fell open in horror when he found his fellow Junior Woodchuck with Uncle Donald’s secret journal clutched in her hands.</p><p>She looked at the red triplet with a fiery look in her eyes. “Tell. Me. Everything. NOW.”</p><p>Huey gulped. “Aw phooey.”</p><p>
  
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Really pushing that T rating to the limit here.</p><p>I hope this chapter satisfied all you Donald x Kay shippers out there, I really had fun doing a romantic chapter for once.</p><p>also I used google translate for all of the italian lines so I do apologize if I butchered the language a bit, I'm not a native speaker and tried my best.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. F.O.W.L. play</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It was a beautiful day for a picnic, the sun was out, there was a light breeze in the air, the leaves on the trees were already starting to change color. Fall was truly in full swing.</p><p>Donald has decided to take advantage of the good weather and invite his girlfriend Daisy out on a small picnic date in one of Duckburg’s parks.</p><p>The two of them sat beneath an old oak tree that acted as a canopy, covering them in a comfortable shade as they simply chewed the fat.</p><p>Daisy would talk about her fashion business which had taken off like a rocket ever since that incident at the it gala, Donald would talk about the boys and how they were doing in school; all while sharing sandwiches that Donald had brought. It was nice.</p><p>The sailor simply couldn’t believe how lucky he was to find a gal like Daisy, not only was she beautiful but she just <b>got</b> him. From his temper to his bad luck to his voice, none of it bothered her in the slightest, she loved him exactly the way he was and Donald was grateful for it. He never thought he’d be able to find love again, not after…</p><p>Donald’s train of thought screeched to a halt when a familiar tune started drifting through the air from a nearby busker:</p><p>“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore! When-”</p><p>Daisy stopped speaking when she noticed that her boyfriend had appeared to have fallen into some sort of trance, starting off into the distance with a sort of haunted gaze. When she touched his arm, he jerked back and focused his blinking eyes back on her.</p><p>“Donald? Are you alright?” The female duck in concern.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just...that song reminds me of someone I used to know…”</p><p>Daisy nodded and tried to steer the conversation back to Huey’s most recent Junior Woodchuck accomplishments, she knew that Donald had a whole lot of secrets about his past and she also knew that he wasn’t always comfortable sharing them. From the look on his face, that somebody was one of those uncomfortable secrets, so Daisy decided to let it go out of respect, Donald would tell her when he was ready to like he did with the identity of his uncle.</p><p>Little did either of them know, on the other end of that very same park, Huey and Violet were learning all about said secret.</p><p>“So that’s the long and short of it.” Huey said, finishing up his summary of his uncle’s past, or at least the parts he knew about.</p><p>“Fascinating. Not only has Donald Duck managed to accomplish so much in such a short time but he’s also managed to keep it a secret from nearly everyone in his life, perhaps his so-called incompetence is more a form of obfuscating stupidity than an actual lack of intellect; in short, he is far more dangerous than he appears.” Violet remarked. “I can’t help but wonder, what was the fate of Kay K? Your uncle seemed fairly close to her yet I’ve never heard her brought up once in any of Webby’s conversations regarding the Mcduck family and neither you nor your brothers have mentioned her, so I can only assume something had happened that split them apart in some way.”</p><p>“Well there’s only one way to find out.” Huey said, holding up the infamous journal in his hand.</p><p>“Indeed.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>Six months, that’s how long Donald and Kay had been together. Six months of dates, physical affection, and pure romantic bliss along with a few hurdles they had to hop over as a couple.</p><p>Revealing their relationship to the rest of their social circles was far more complicated than Donald had ever imagined it to be. Particularly regarding S.H.U.S.H. who, upon hearing about their newly formed romantic relations, were immediately escorted to different rooms for questioning and to fill out some paperwork; apparently there was a whole bureaucratic process that took place in the event that two agents decided to start dating, which was extremely invasive and embarrassing. Outside of the normal questions of what he would do if his romantic partner turned on the agency or, heaven forbid, was killed in action, they also asked if they planned to wed in the nearby future and if they had conceived a child or were planning to do so.</p><p>The whole session went on for hours and Donald was certain he was red as a tomato by the end of it, but at least they had the full approval of S.H.U.S.H. to pursue each other romantically.</p><p>As for their families, that was a different story. It turned out that Agent 22 was actually Kay’s adopted mother, apparently Kay was abandoned when she was just an egg and was found by agent 22 during a mission in Munich, when all attempts to find her parents failed the legendary agent took it upon herself to be a mother to Kay and raise her properly as opposed to turning her over to an orphanage. Which, in retrospect, actually explains a whole lot. Agent 22 of course approved of the relationship, having seen firsthand how much of a good man Donald was, but made it very clear that if Donald harmed her in any way he would be living the rest of his short life in extreme pain.</p><p>As for Donald’s family...well, he hadn’t actually told them yet. In fact he hadn’t told them he had been working for S.H.U.S.H. at all, as far as any of them knew he was not a butt kicking secret agent that traveled the world and was actually some government supported desk jockey working out of st. canard. Sure he had stopped by home now and then just to visit but he never shared any details of his job, he wasn’t supposed to after all. Which means they also had no clue Kay K even existed.</p><p>Donald hoped to change that tonight. It was Scrooge’s yearly christmas party and this time instead of inviting the local Duckburg elite, the old miser decided to treat it as a small family reunion of sorts and invite the Mcducks, the ducks, and the coots out to duckburg.</p><p>If there was ever a time to introduce his girlfriend to his family, now would be that time. Of course he was worried to high heaven about the whole affair, knowing exactly how his family would react to him finding a girlfriend for the first time.</p><p>A sentiment Kay clearly did not share as she checked her make up in a pocket mirror, Donald insisted she didn’t need any of it as her natural beauty was more than enough to impress. But Kay insisted on looking her absolute best when meeting Donald’s family to make a good first impression. The S.H.U.S.H. agent was practically the definition of confidence as she sat next to Donald, keeping a calm and composed look the whole drive over.</p><p>“Listen Kay, I really think you need to brace yourself for tonight my family is-”</p><p>“Scrooge Mcduck, unknown age, migrated to America at age thirteen to start a shoe shining business that later spiraled out into a multinational conglomerate with its fingers in nearly every market in existence worth billions. Also does adventuring as a casual hobby with his niece and nephew: Della and Donald Duck. The billionaire has best been described as abrasive with a rarely seen soft side. Della Duck is twenty-two years of age, currently pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering with a specialization in aeronautics along with a minor in business, personality wise she is reckless and impulsive with a lust for life and a love for her family.” Kay rattled off, never once taking her eyes off the scenery. “I read their dossiers, 22 was very thorough in her research.”</p><p>Donald rolled his eyes. “Yes I know, but reading a file about them and actually meeting them are two very different things Kay.”</p><p>The agent merely chuckled in response. “Donald, I’ve faced down some of the most violent and dangerous criminals in the world, I think I can handle meeting my boyfriend’s family.”</p><p>“I know it’s just that-” Donald stopped when Kay leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on Donald’s cheek.</p><p>“Hey come on, quit worrying so much. Everything will be just fine tonight, I promise.” Kay reassured Donald, leaning against him.</p><p>“You’re right, you’re always right. Thanks Kay.” Donald replied with a smile. “Oh look, we’re here.”</p><p>Judging by the number of cars parked out front, the entire family had shown up in droves to attend the party. There were cars and trucks of every make and model lined up in the driveway, some of which Donald recognized and others he didn’t. This did almost nothing to ease Donald’s nerves, knowing that Kay really would end up meeting his entire family tonight.</p><p>‘Oh well.’ Donald thought as he parked and got out. ‘At least we’ll be too busy to meet-’</p><p>“Hey Double D!”</p><p>‘Oh phooey…’ Donald internally grimaced, it was the one family member he didn’t want to see right now: Gladstone Gander, rapidly approaching him with the same confident grin the sailor had come to despise over the years.</p><p>“Hi Gladstone.” Donald said, not even trying to hide the disdain in his voice.</p><p>“Hi Gladstone? I haven’t seen you since high school and all I get is a ‘hi Gladstone’? Is that any way to talk to your favorite-” Gladstone stopped when he suddenly noticed the raven haired beauty stepping out of his cousin’s car. “Well helloooo there.”</p><p>Oh no, he was not about to let Gladstone ruin another relationship for him, not again! The Duck quickly slid over to Kay, wrapped his arm around his girlfriend, and pulled her close; much to Kay’s confusion.</p><p>“Come on, let’s just go. Everyone’s probably waiting for us.” Donald muttered, trying to lead Kay into the manor only for Gladstone to step right in front of them, his gaze never once leaving the female duck</p><p>“Woah there Donaldo, aren’t you going to introduce me to your lady friend?”</p><p>Donald sighed, it was just his luck this was happening; the only thing Gladstone was known for other than his luck was his womanizing ways, back in high school the guy was going through a girlfriend a week at the very LEAST, so it only figured that someone as attractive as Kay would catch his eye</p><p>“Kay, this is my cousin Gladstone. Gladstone, this is Kay, my co-worker and girlfriend.” Donald said, getting some level of satisfaction out of seeing the brief moment of shock come across his cousin’s face as he looked back and forth between them.</p><p>“Wait girlfriend?” Gladstone sputtered. “You’re his girlfriend?!”</p><p>“Yes, for six months.” Kay flatly replied.</p><p>“You?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Gladstone’s confident look soon returned. “Wouldn’t you rather get with the duck with all the luck, Gladstone Gander?”</p><p>Kay frowned and briefly gave Gladstone a once over before simply replying. “No thanks.”</p><p>“Wait, what?” Gladstone and Donald exclaimed in perfect unison.</p><p>“I said no, I’d much prefer to stick with my boyfriend Donald Duck.”</p><p>Gladstone clearly wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Are you kidding me? What does a bombshell like you even see in him?!”</p><p>“Other than the fact that he’s not a hack in a tacky green suit with the personality of a bowling ball?” Kay spat with slight venom in her tone. “He’s loyal, hardworking, kind, handsome, and is able to keep me satisfied both emotionally and physically. I could go on all night but my boyfriend and I have a party to attend and we don’t wanna be late, have a wonderful evening.”</p><p>With that, Kay looped her arm around Donald and led him up the driveway towards the front entrance to the manor. The latter looked over his shoulder and smirked at the dumbfounded look on Gladstone’s face, clearly not being able to comprehend that someone like Kay rejected him.</p><p>“I’m sorry about that.” Kay remarked.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Mouthing off to your cousin like that, I know that might have been a bit harsh but I just hate those kinds of people, cocky trust fund babies that have had life handed to them on a silver platter they’re so-”</p><p>“Insufferable?” Donald said, finishing Kay’s sentence. “Trust me, I know. I had to grow up with the guy, he was just as bad as a kid as he is now.”</p><p>“I feel so sorry for you.” The S.H.U.S.H. agent replied, ringing the doorbell to the house.</p><p>The manor door was quickly flung open by a rather heavy set goose, the sounds of life and chatter sounding off from behind him, the moment his eyes fell on Donald he nearly squealed and wrapped his arms around the duck in a bear hug.</p><p>“Donald! Ya made it! Aunt Matilda was starting to worry you were gonna no show.”</p><p>Donald chuckled. “Like I’d miss a family reunion Gus. Oh, and I brought a friend from work. I hope you don’t mind.”</p><p>“Of course not, the more the merrier!” Gus exclaimed, releasing Donald and thrusting a hand out to Kay. “any friend of Donald is a friend of mine! Gus Goose, Donald’s third cousin, nice to meet ya!”</p><p>“Likewise.” Kay replied with a smile, matching Gus’ handshake.</p><p>“Wowie, strong grip ya got there! Well come on in, the party’s waiting for ya!”</p><p>The entire foyer was bustling with life, ducks and geese of every shape, size, and age milling around and chatting with one another. Everywhere you looked there were avians eating, drinking, and generally being merry all in the spirit of the holidays; it was a lovely scene full of warmth and light.</p><p>From across the room, Donald could see Scrooge talking- no, arguing with aunt Matilda. While he was out of earshot, he could at least make out the words ‘that good for nothing nephew of yours’ coming out of her mouth and it didn’t take a genius to guess who she was talking about. But Donald didn’t get angry, this was neither the time nor the place for it, instead he focused on the task at hand: slowly introducing his family to his girlfriend.</p><p>As the duo made their way over, Donald got a few greetings and friendly waves from nearby family members along with a lot of quizzical stares pointed at the duck wrapped around his arm coupled with hushed whispers.</p><p>“Who’s that?”</p><p>“Why is she with Donald? Is she a friend of his?”</p><p>“Whoever she is, she sure is a looker.”</p><p>“I think my foot is stuck in this bucket…”</p><p>Soon enough, Donald managed to get close enough to his uncle Scrooge and aunt Matilda to hear exactly what they were arguing about.</p><p>“I’ll have you know that Donald has been holding a position as a government agent for well over a year now and...Donald me boy!” The billionaire exclaimed, finally noticing his nephew standing right beside him, giving him a tight hug.</p><p>“Hi uncle scrooge.” Donald replied, returning the hug and watching his aunt turn up her nose and strut away.</p><p>“Ah, it’s been too long. How have ya been?”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “Oh you know, same as usual. Been really busy at the office, my boss has had me running all over the place but I’m keeping up.”</p><p>“Glad to hear it, I can always respect a hard worker.” Scrooge replied jovially, until he took notice of Kay. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”</p><p>“Hello Scrooge, I’m Kay K. I work in the same office as your nephew Donald, he invited me to come along with him to meet you.” The female duck, offering a respectful handshake.</p><p>The billionaire returned the handshake out of politeness. “Alright, but I’m not sure why me nephew felt the need to bring a coworker along to a <b>family</b> gathering, especially out of the blue like this.”</p><p>“Well, Kay is a bit more than my coworker Uncle Scrooge.” Donald stuttered, nervously tugging at his collar.</p><p>“What do you mean by that lad?”</p><p>“Uncle Scrooge, Kay is my-”</p><p>“GIRLFRIEND?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN DONALD HAS A GIRLFRIEND?!” Della’s voice screeched through the air, rudely interrupting Donald mid-sentence.</p><p>The effect on the room was immediate, all of the sounds of life and merriment within the room was snuffed out and replaced with sheer silence. Every individual in the room turned their heads to stare at the couple like a spotlight was being shined upon the spot they stood. It was always big news when a member of the duck family found a special somebody, particularly for those directly related to them; but the fact that it was Donald duck of all people, the one who got stuck with all the bad luck, had managed to find love was certainly unexpected.</p><p>“Well, I suppose that’s one way to get the introduction out of the way.” Kay whispered to Donald.</p><p>Donald meekly nodded. “You may want to brace yourself.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Kay did not have to wait for a response, as within seconds the poor girl found herself surrounded by a whole flock of overly enthusiastic ducks and geese who were nearly falling over each other to get a good look at her and ask her all sorts of questions: how they met, what she liked about Donald, when the wedding was. Kay tried her best to keep up, but the sheer intensity of the attention she was getting soon left her floundering; Donald wanted to help her but he knew that in this sort of situation, any attempts at aid would only be throwing gasoline on the fire, all he could do was have faith in his girlfriend to handle his family’s insanity.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>“Okay, you were right. I was NOT prepared for something like that.” Kay remarked, downing the drink in her hand.</p><p>“Told ya so. At least you lasted longer than most people have.” Donald added, making a drink of his own. “Della’s first boyfriend ran out screaming after meeting our family.”</p><p>Kay snorted at that mental picture.</p><p>After getting utterly swarmed by Donald’s extended family, the novelty of Donald having a girlfriend started to wear off and the S.H.U.S.H. agent was able to get some much needed breathing room to properly meet Scrooge Mcduck and Della Duck, who weren’t exactly as excited to meet her as the rest of the ducks were. If anything, the two of them were convinced that Kay’s intentions with Donald were less than pure (it wouldn’t be the first time after all) and spent a decent amount of time interrogating her; luckily, Kay’s natural charm shone through and she managed to win over her boyfriend’s twin sister and uncle, receiving permission to date him. Of course when Kay let it slip that they had been dating for six months now, the ducks quickly turned their fury on Donald and demanded why they hadn’t told either of them about his girlfriend during that time.</p><p>“So you mind giving me a run down of the old family tree? I was too busy having them bury me in excitement to get any of their names.”</p><p>“I’ll try, but this family is so large and crazy I can barely keep up sometimes, so many cousins and aunts and grunkles, it’s enough to make your head spin.” Donald replied before giving her a brief history of the Mcduck family:</p><p>The entire tree could be traced back to three major roots: Clan Mcduck, the Duck family, and Coot kin. The Mcducks originated in scotland from Seafoam Mcduck, Scrooge’s great great grandfather, who was a merchant back in the day sailing the high seas before turning to piracy after being swindled out of his fortune and made a decent living as a buccaneer before marrying off and fathering Scrooge’s great grandfather. The Ducks stemmed from Pintail Duck, the boatswain of Malcom Mcduck, who was Seafoam’s brother at the time, allegedly the origin point of the Duck family’s explosive temper he sailed the high seas and fathered Seth Duck who in turn fathered Donald’s grandfather Humpernick duck. As for the Coots? The founder of duckburg Cornelius Coot was the trunk of their end of the tree, having scared off the beagle boys with a golden army he became the leader of Duckburg and helped the city expand, eventually having a son named Clinton Coot who was pulling ninety three by this point and couldn’t make it to the party because of his health, he married and had a daughter named Elvira Coot who married Humpernick duck, thus linking the Coots and the Ducks together. It wasn’t until their son, Quackmore duck, entered the picture and married Hortense Mcduck that the Mcducks became part of the larger collective.</p><p>“And of course my parents obviously brought Della and I into this world, my aunt Daphne duck is responsible for my cousin Gladstone, and my other uncle Eider Duck is Fethry’s dad. That’s about as much of the family tree as I know.”</p><p>“That seems like a whole lot for someone who can ‘barely keep up’.” Kay teased, only to receive a shrug in reply.</p><p>“That’s just the basic stuff, there’s a whole army of relatives I didn’t even mention yet.”</p><p>Kay then pointed to a rather well dressed duck with slicked back hair making his way across the room. “So which family is he a part of? The McDucks, the Ducks, or the Coots?”</p><p>Donald spied the individual she was pointing at and found himself at a loss. While he had trouble keeping track of the old family tree, he could at least recognize a family member when he saw one. Donald didn’t recognize this guy at all, not only that but there was just something about him that gave off an aura of danger, like he didn’t belong here at all. Kay seemed to pick up on that same aura from her secret agent training.</p><p>“He isn’t a family member, is he?”</p><p>Donald put a hand on his chin. “Not sure, I don’t recognize the guy but I’ve been wrong before...we’d better keep a close eye on him for now. You follow from his left and I’ll take the right, keep your distance until we know who he is.”</p><p>Kay nodded and slowly made her way into the sea of ducks with Donald following suit, both keeping careful watch over this possible party crasher.</p><p>The more Donald watched the duck, the more he became suspicious of him. While he was stonefaced, there were little tells just barely noticeable on his face that made it clear he was nervous, the way his eyes were constantly scanning the room, the hand perpetually stuck in his suit jacket, the uneven rhythm of his pace. He was up to something for sure, but what?</p><p>That’s when Donald realized that the duck seemed to be headed directly for Scrooge, the path was a bit uneven sure but there was no mistake that the billionaire was his destination. Which only made Donald even more paranoid, after all his uncle had his fair share of enemies who would step over their own mothers if it meant killing the elder duck or at least ransoming him out for a large sum of money.</p><p>His old protective instincts surfacing again, Donald checked to make sure Kay was still on the suspect and changed his route to head towards his uncle without making it too obvious he would do so.</p><p>‘Didn’t think I’d be using my S.H.U.S.H. agent training tonight.’ Donald thought to himself as he slowly got closer to his uncle who was wrapped up in a rather animated discussion with Goostave Gander.</p><p>Donald kept a respectful distance from Scrooge, so not to alert the mystery guest, but was close enough that he could tackle his uncle out of danger if need be.</p><p>Turns out, the latter was much needed. As when the duck got roughly ten feet from the billionaire with a clear line of sight, he started to pull his hand out of his jacket revealing the weapon clutched in it.</p><p>The party crasher was quick on the draw for sure...but Donald was faster.</p><p>“GUN!” The secret agent screamed, sprinting over to Scrooge and narrowly tackling him out of the way right as the firearm went off, a loud bang resonating from within the room that sent everyone scattering.</p><p>Donald hissed at the sensation of pain shooting up his arm, his head darting to look at the tear in his suit that was now leaking a whole lot of red. Luckily, the bullet had only seemed to graze Donald’s arm and he was spared from any major injury.</p><p>“Damn it!” The blonde duck shouted, clearly not expecting Donald’s intervention. He fired off two more rounds wildly, both of which missed their intended targets, before Kay managed to tackle him to the ground. The agent forcing his face onto the carpet and sending his gun skidding across the room from the impact.</p><p>“Got you!” Kay exclaimed.</p><p>“You’ve got nothing!”</p><p>The would-be assassin swiftly elbowed Kay right in the beak, knocking her on her back while she clutched her mouth in pain. Giving the mysterious duck the opportunity to get back on his feet.</p><p>Knowing that he was now unarmed and surrounded by ducks much tougher than he was, the duck decided to simply cut his losses and flee to avoid capture. He scrambled over several of the party’s attendants who had hit the floor the minute they heard gunshots and jumped right through a window, landing in the right yard of the manor.</p><p>“Hey! He’s getting away!” Fethry shouted.</p><p>“NO HE’S NOT!” Donald replied, leaping out the window after the party crasher. Normally he’d check on his partner right about now while reporting the assassin to the authorities, but this guy had shot him, nearly killed his uncle and hurt his girlfriend in the span of about three minutes, there was no way Donald was going to let any of that slide. This was personal...</p><p>Fueled by rage, Donald chased the mysterious man across the grounds of Mcduck manor, the latter of the two clearly getting frustrated over the fact that he was now being tailed and started weaving through trees and hopping over bushes in an attempt to lose the Duck. While this did slow Donald down a decent amount, the secret agent spent a good portion of his life playing in the gardens around the manor and knew them like the back of his hand, as such he knew exactly where the guy was going before even he did.</p><p>There was a several rocks that created a narrow pathway straight in the direction he was heading where Donald and Della liked to play when they were younger, he knew from personal experience that there was a tree that hung directly over this pathway that was an excellent place to ambush someone, Della had used it plenty of times on various individuals including Donald.</p><p>Taking a decisive turn into the foliage, giving the illusion that he had lost the perp, Donald quickly took a shortcut through the woods and eventually came to the aforementioned tree; scrambling up it as quickly as he could, Donald did his best to camouflage himself and merely waited for his prey to come to him.</p><p>Within minutes, he heard the crunching of leaves and snapping of branches as the assassin got closer to his position.</p><p>‘three...two...one...NOW!’</p><p>Donald let out a war cry and burst from the trees above, scaring the life out of the duck below him, landing dead center on top of him and forcing him on his back. The blonde struggled for a moment and tried to fight back but Donald was far stronger and more ferocious, several punches to a head and a knee to the gut quickly disabled his opponent. Donald then grabbed his collar and glared at him.</p><p>“Who are you?! Why were you after my uncle?!”</p><p>The duck below him giggled. “My employers at F.O.W.L. deemed Scrooge Mcduck a threat to their plans, so he had to go. Though I had no idea S.H.U.S.H. was protecting him.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes widened. “What? How do you know I work for S.H.U.S.H.? And what’s F.O.W.L.?!”</p><p>“Sorry pal but…” an audible crack came from the duck’s jaw. “You’re not gonna live long enough to find out.”</p><p>The blonde started violently coughing as his mouth started to fill up with foam, his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he went limp and Donald could only growl in frustration. Now he couldn’t get any answers at all, but seeing as he had a few minutes before anybody found them, Donald started patting the guy down for clues.</p><p>Unfortunately, Donald couldn’t find any form of identification on him; no driver’s license, no blood donor cards, no pudding club membership, nothing!</p><p>Nothing except for a small little red card with the word F.O.W.L. printed on it, the phrase “fiendish organization for world larceny” printed on it.</p><p>At least he knew what F.O.W.L. stood for now but he wasn’t any closer to finding out what the organization actually was, how they knew he worked for S.H.U.S.H., or why they were after Scrooge...Actually scratch that last one, pretty much every evil organization in the world has it out for his uncle with him being the world’s greatest adventurer.</p><p>Quickly pocketing the card, Donald heard a gasp and turned around to see Della standing there with a shocked expression. She must have followed him in an effort to help but got here a little late.</p><p>“Is...is he…”</p><p>Donald nodded. “Poisoned himself, he’d rather be dead than get caught. Come on, let’s get back and tell the others.”</p><p>Della simply nodded, still looking at the corpse lying on the ground as they left, clearly disturbed by recent events.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>“So, you have no idea who he was?” The first cop asked Donald.</p><p>“Never seen him before in my life.” Donald replied as a paramedic wrapped a bandage around his injured arm.</p><p>The entire front yard of Mcduck manor was littered with police cars, ambulances, and concerned family members; upon receiving a call that an assassin had made an attempt on Scrooge McDuck’s life, the entirety of Duckburg’s police force was immediately up in arms and rushed over to the billionaire’s home as quickly as they could. Setting up a large perimeter around the mansion to ensure that the perp wouldn’t escape, after a few tense minutes of searching the manor grounds not only for the blonde haired but also Donald and Della who had chased after him, the duo emerged from some bushes no worse for wear, much to the relief of Scrooge.</p><p>After getting checked over for injuries, with the paramedics insisting on bandaging Donald’s bullet wound despite the duck insisting he was fine, the local authorities started questioning the duo about the man’s identity and if they knew why he targeted Scrooge. But they were just as much in the dark as everyone else, nobody knew who he was or how he managed to infiltrate the party and seeing as he was currently in a bodybag being shipped off to the city morgue they couldn’t exactly ask him.</p><p>“Great. So we’ve got a total John Doe with no leads whatsoever, perfect.” The second officer grumbled.</p><p>A thought suddenly occurred to Donald. “Wait, where’s Kay? Is she alright?!”</p><p>“I’m fine Donald.” Kay said as she came around the ambulance, a bandage around her beak.</p><p>Donald was on her in moments, putting her hands all over his face and checking to see how bad the damage was, all while muttering concerns under his breath until Kay pushed him off.</p><p>“Sweetheart, I’m fine. It’s just a bit of a cracked beak, the doctors say it’ll heal in a week in a half, nothing to worry about.”</p><p>“Are you sure? Maybe we should get a second opinion, he really got a good shot in.” Donald replied with concern.</p><p>Kay shook her head. “I’m tough, I can suck it up. Besides, I need to talk to you right now, in private if possible.”</p><p>“Well I’m all done here.” the paramedic interjected as she cut the gauze. “So he’s free to leave.”</p><p>“Same can be said for me, we’ve gotten all we needed. You lovebirds can go on ahead.”</p><p>Kay nodded and quickly pulled her boyfriend to a more secluded spot on the lawn, away from prying eyes and eavesdroppers.</p><p>She leaned in close with a serious expression and whispered. “Please, please, <b>please</b>, tell me you found a clue on him, anything even if it’s just a comb with a hair on it.”</p><p>Donald wordlessly fished the F.O.W.L. card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “This was all I could find, any idea what it means?”</p><p>Kay looked over the card and her eyes grew wide in recognition at the card, a sharp frown coming onto her face as she turned it over in her palm.</p><p>“Oh no...this is bad...this is very, very bad.” Kay muttered.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>The sound of a ringing phone stopped both kids as they were reading mid sentence.</p><p>Violet quickly fished the device out of her pocket and placed it to her ear. “Hi Lena. Uh-huh. no I’m just doing a bit of reading with Huey. No, it’s not a date! Uh-huh, okay I’ll be right there.”</p><p>The hummingbird hung up on her sister and placed her cell phone back in my pocket. “My parents are coming by to pick me up in a few minutes so we’ll have to cut this reading session short. Shall we return to it later?”</p><p>“Sure, how about we meet up at the boardwalk in two days? I’ll bring the others, it wouldn’t feel right reading any further ahead without them, they need to know about this.” Huey nodded.</p><p>“It’s a date.”</p><p>There was a brief moment of silence between the two before they collectively realized what Violet just said.</p><p>“I-I mean not a d-date date, just a casual meeting between friends to uncover secrets.” Violet stuttered out with a pronounced blush. “I have to go!”</p><p>The bookworm quickly speedwalked away from the bench leaving Huey all alone in the park once more, the junior woodchuck still blushing after what Violet said; he knew what she meant but still.</p><p>Shaking off his developing romantic feelings, Huey focused on the coming trial: explaining to his brothers that he started reading ahead without them and Violet now knew their uncle’s secrets.</p><p>He wasn’t looking forward to it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ha-ha! you thought it was a 'girlfriend meeting the family' chapter but it was I, 'introduction of primary arc antagonist' all along!</p><p>So yes, F.O.W.L. has arrived on scene and this is where everything starts to go wrong for Donald and Kay...<br/>also I looked at Donald's family tree way too many times when writing this chapter, it's kind of ridiculous.<br/>and this will be the one and ONLY time Daisy appears in this story I swear...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Lies and Betrayals</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>things get serious, if I dare say dangerous.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>“YOU TOLD HER?!” Dewey shouted.</p><p>“NOT ON PURPOSE! SHE FOUND THE BOOK ON HER OWN!” Huey shouted back</p><p>“WHY WERE YOU EVEN READING AHEAD IN THE FIRST PLACE?! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DIG INTO UNCLE DONALD’S PAST TOGETHER!”</p><p>Violet looked away from the feuding brothers to her female companion who seemed to be extremely shaken upon learning that Kay K was her grandmother’s adoptive daughter and considering the possibility that the S.H.U.S.H. agent could very well be one half of her long lost parents whom she had never seen since she was an infant. Currently, the girl was nervously pacing back and forth in front of the restaurant countertop muttering various theories and hypotheses under her breath to try and rationalize the situation.</p><p>The only one of the group, other than Violet of course, who kept their composure was Louie and even he was initially stunned upon hearing that not only did his uncle have a girlfriend long before Daisy, before any of them came into the picture, but it also seemed to be a pretty serious relationship. Once the initial shock of discovering the true extent of Uncle Donald’s love life wore off, Louie resigned himself to simply sit back and watch the fireworks. Sure he was a bit upset that Huey had read ahead but he couldn’t really blame him, none of them ever knew uncle Donald’s past was so exciting.</p><p>“Aren’t you going to do something?” Violet said, looking at the green duck.</p><p>Louie shrugged and took another sip of pep. “Nope. Trust me, it’s better if we just let them work it out. They’ll be shouting at each other for a few more minutes, then they’ll run out of steam, apologize, and hug like they always do.”</p><p>“And you aren’t bothered by any of this?”</p><p>“A little, I mean finding out uncle Donald was a secret agent is pretty nuts but between him being a superhero and a legendary navy commander, this just feels like par for the course. I am kinda wondering about Kay K though, uncle Donald never mentioned her before; you think they broke up?”</p><p>“That’s one theory, another is that she betrayed him but then again those two events aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.” Violet replied before turning her gaze back to Huey and Dewey who had calmed down considerably and were now hugging each other just like Louie said they would be.</p><p>The green hooded duck then looked over to Webby and placed a hand on her shoulder, causing the girl’s head to snap up towards him.</p><p>“Hey, you good?”</p><p>Webby shuffled nervously in place. “I-I think so. It’s just a lot to take in, even for me. Granny never told me about my parents no matter how many times I asked and I couldn’t find any records of them; now I find out that my mom could be a S.H.U.S.H. agent who worked with and dated Donald Duck!”</p><p>“Hey we don’t know if she’s your mom.”</p><p>“But she could be!” Webby exclaimed. “There’s so much evidence that could support it! And what if...what if Donald’s my father?”</p><p>“And what if Launchpad’s our dad?” Louie calmly replied. “The answer is the same, if it comes to that we’ll deal with it like every other crazy thing that comes with being a part of this family.”</p><p>“He does have a point, Webbigail. Besides, you’ve always raved about how much you idolize the Mcduck family, would having Scrooge Mcduck as your biological uncle really be that bad?”</p><p>“No, no it wouldn’t. Thanks guys.” Webby replied with a smile.</p><p>“Alright so Dewey and I agreed that I’ll do your guys’ homework for the next two weeks as punishment for going on ahead without you.” Huey said as the duo approached the rest of the group. “Everyone ready to dive back into our uncle’s past?”</p><p>A resounding yes came from the rest of the kids as Webby opened the journal once more.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>As it turned out, F.O.W.L. was a very, very, VERY, big deal to S.H.U.S.H.. The Fiendish Organization for World Larceny was one of the biggest criminal organizations out there that was even more underground than S.H.U.S.H. was, having been responsible for numerous tragedies and high profile robberies worldwide along with general acts of terrorism; not to mention the sworn arch-enemies of S.H.U.S.H. as a whole. They were fairly quiet for the most part, sticking to the shadows for the most part and staying out of the public eye while remaining inactive; but when they did surface, they were usually planning something big.</p><p>And Donald had managed to stumble backwards into one of their schemes back at the Mcduck manor Christmas party. S.H.U.S.H. hadn’t even known that a F.O.W.L. agent was in attendance, Donald and Kay were merely in the right place at the right time which gave the spy agency an edge as it allowed them to get the drop on F.O.W.L.’s far earlier than they normally did.</p><p>Of course S.H.U.S.H. wasn’t about to get cocky, this was F.O.W.L. they were dealing with after all. The entire agency went on high alert; monitoring every communication channel that was available to them, putting every agent they had at their disposal out into the field for undercover work, all in the name of finding out what F.O.W.L.’s plans were and stopping them at all costs. The only ones that weren’t sent out were, ironically enough, Donald, Kay K, agent 22, and all the other high level agents; they were regulated to a black ops team that would be deployed the moment F.O.W.L. reared their ugly heads again. In the meantime they’d have to lie low and await further instructions.</p><p>Turns out they didn’t have to wait very long, as three weeks later someone spotted a known F.O.W.L. associate in Cuba, moving weapons. S.H.U.S.H. got the team down there within hours and successfully put a stop to the arms deal.</p><p>Another report came out a week later, one from sri-lanka about the kidnapping of an important political figure by F.O.W.L.</p><p>Then three days after that, F.O.W.L. was spotted in brazil attempting to steal an ancient artifact from a museum</p><p>Soon enough, it was a full on espionage war between the two agencies with Donald and Kay leading the charge against F.O.W.L.. They were practically working non-stop with their fellow agents, often going days without sleep to accomplish dozens of missions back to back around the world.</p><p>S.H.U.S.H. would win some, F.O.W.L. would win others, and on more than one occasion it ended in a draw between the two groups. But neither of them truly managed to get a decisive victory over the other in the conflict, both were so evenly matched it was a constant stalemate.</p><p>There were of course casualties on both sides: Bruno Von Beak of F.O.W.L. was killed by a stray bullet in Dublin, Jason Blackhawk of S.H.U.S.H. was trapped on an exploding oil tanker in the south atlantic, Oddduck of F.O.W.L. plummeted to his death from a skyscraper in Dubai, and perhaps the most tragic of all was J Gander Hooter who was mysteriously poisoned and wound up in the hospital on life support; while he wasn’t dead yet, he was completely unable to run S.H.U.S.H. which forced his aide, Alexander Puffin, to take over operations.</p><p>That was around the time strange things started to happen: Gadgets would fail or glitch out, intel would be inaccurate or straight up wrong, agents began to mysteriously vanish in the field along with S.H.U.S.H. assets.</p><p>But Donald never gave it too much thought, he was far too sleep deprived from the constant fighting to focus on anything else but the next mission, the next objective, the next plot he had to put a stop to. He was burning the candle at both ends and he knew it perfectly well, he was starting to slip back into his old temper and was lashing out more frequently, but too many people were counting on him for him to stop.</p><p>Thank goodness Kay was right there beside him to keep him grounded and pick him up when he fell down, otherwise they might not have uncovered what was really going on behind the scenes. Of course that’s not to say she wasn’t being affected by their busy work schedule either.</p><p>Facing down F.O.W.L. had instilled a rather unhealthy sense of paranoia in the poor girl, Kay was constantly on the alert, always checking her surroundings and looking over her shoulder for hostile forces, utterly convinced that the criminal organization could strike anywhere at anytime (granted that wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption to make, but Kay took it a bit too far.). It actually reached a point where Donald started staying over at her place just so she could sleep at night; apparently having Donald watch over her made Kay feel safe.</p><p>It wasn’t until a routine mission uncovered a far more sinister plot happening behind the scenes that Donald realized her paranoia was more than justified.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>The town of Stepford seemed to be a fairly unassuming midwestern suburb; white picket fences, well maintained homes, and a friendly atmosphere of american idealism in the air. You’d never think that it was actually a secret cover up for mind control testing grounds.</p><p>Donald and Kay had been dispatched to the sleepy town after some strange reports were made about the residents along with alleged F.O.W.L. connections. At first everything was normal, the people were friendly if a bit eccentric at times with bright smiles on their faces, until the agents noticed that their smiles were a bit TOO wide and some of their behaviors were just a bit too uniform. Eventually they figured out that everyone in town had been subjected to some sort of brainwashing experiment and were under F.O.W.L.’s control.</p><p>Which led us to the here and now of Donald and Kay fending off an army of mind controlled slaves under F.O.W.L.’s command at the local country club that served as the organization’s base of operations. The crowd was unarmed and had a complete lack of combat skill, but those brainwashed suburbanites had the clear numbers advantage and with Donald and Kay’s gadgets having been either used up or failed, they were down to nothing more than their fists.</p><p>Eventually, the duo was forced to retreat further into the building as the crowd surged forth like a horde of the undead, animalistic screams emanating from them as the S.H.U.S.H. agents fled.</p><p>“Not how I planned this day going!” Donald shouted</p><p>“Really? Because I thought fighting a bunch of brainwashed yuppies would have made for a lovely date!” Kay sarcastically shot back.</p><p>Donald quickly pulled out his tranquilizer gun and fired wildly into the crowd, nailing several suburban dads that were leading the charge causing them to collapse and start a chain reaction of people tripping over one another into a massive pile of flailing limbs and growls.</p><p>The Duck smiled, at least something was going right today.</p><p>Too bad their good fortune didn’t last very long; Donald was able to hold off the crowd for a little while with his tranquilizers, but of course his ammunition ran out eventually and the duo was forced to flee once more, quickly finding themselves herded into a broom closet with no alternate exits.</p><p>Donald tipped over a supply cabinet and used it to barricade the door from the mind slaves outside. “This isn’t good, any ideas Kay?”</p><p>“I’m at a bit of a loss here.” The female agent replied as she frantically looked around the room. “No vents, no improvised weapons, and no secret...wait.”</p><p>Kay stopped when she noticed that there seemed to be the outline of something under the cheap carpet, quickly rolling the carpet up, the S.H.U.S.H. agents found a trap door embedded into the floor.</p><p>“That’s oddly convenient….you think it might be a trap?”</p><p>“Possibly. But it sure does look inviting.” Donald replied.</p><p>With the sounds of frantic banging coming from the other side of the closet door that was now slowly being broken down, Kay had to agree and pried the secret exit open; the raven harried duck scrambling down the ladder with Donald quickly following suit. Just in time too, as when Donald closed the hatch behind them he could hear the door finally give way and the brainwashed suburbanites flood in.</p><p>“Phew, that was a close-” Donald was cut off by his partner slamming a hand over his beak with a loud shush, motioning to something behind her.</p><p>Looking over her shoulder, Donald’s eyes widened when he saw what was very obviously a member of F.O.W.L. hunched over a large computer with dozens of monitors, frantically looking from one to the other.</p><p>“Where did they go? They couldn’t have escaped, I cut them off from all possible exits.” the F.O.W.L. agent muttered.</p><p>Donald and Kay looked at each other for a moment before giving each other an understanding nod. The former slowly tip-toed over to the distracted goon with the stealth of a ninja church mouse, pulled back his fist, and landed a devastating haymaker punch to the back of his head. The effect was immediate as the F.O.W.L. agent let out a yelp of pain before collapsing on the desk, completely unconscious.</p><p>“Nice work Double Duck.” Kay said, pecking her boyfriend on the cheek. “Now let’s see if we can do something about those slaves…”</p><p>Shoving the limp body out of the chair, Kay quickly got to work at the computer console. The agent typed in a few commands into the computer, gritting her teeth at a few false starts, until she finally managed to crack the code and force a manual shutdown; the sound of bodies falling over followed by confused shouting from above let them know that they had freed the entire community.</p><p>“Alright! We did it! I’ll call headquarters and tell them to start on the cleanup.” Before Donald could, Kay placed a hand over his communicator watch.</p><p>“Not yet darling, I need to do something first.”</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow in confusion when his girlfriend started typing away at the computer. “What do you mean? We shut down their mind control device, aren’t we done here?”</p><p>Kay shook her head. “No. I need to do some digging, there’s more to this than we think, I know it.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Haven’t you been paying attention lately? All the F.O.W.L. operations we’ve been combating, they’re too random, none of them seem to have any common link or theme to them, it feels more like they’re just committing crime for the sake of chaos and if I know F.O.W.L. that’s not their style; everything they do has a purpose and it’s always linked to some greater goal. If I had to guess, everything that’s been going on is just a smokescreen to keep us distracted.” Kay explained.</p><p>“Well...that does kinda make sense.”</p><p>“Oh it’s not just that.” Kay deliriously chucked. “I think there’s something wrong with S.H.U.S.H. too, we might have been compromised.”</p><p>And Kay lost him. “Kay, S.H.U.S.H. is one of the top spy agencies out there. How could they have gotten infiltrated?”</p><p>“That’s the thing! S.H.U.S.H. is supposed to be one of the top spy agencies in the world, so why have things gotten so sloppy lately? I mean broken gadgets, false intel, and missing agents? Don’t tell me it’s because this war has stretched our budget thin, I know we’d have more than enough funding to fight F.O.W.L. like this; someone is trying to sabotage us and I’m gonna find out who…”</p><p>“Well then shouldn’t we report this to the higher ups?” Donald asked. “I mean if you think there’s traitors among us, the director should know.”</p><p>“No. I can’t risk the traitor catching on to us, they could be anyone including the director. This has to stay between us."</p><p>That gave Donald pause, going behind the agency’s back like this didn’t sit right with him and he was starting to suspect that maybe Kay was letting her own paranoia start to get the better of her. Or maybe...she was the traitor…</p><p>Kay shot Donald a look out of the corner of her eye. “You’re doubting me aren’t you? You think I’m going nuts!”</p><p>“N-no, I just don’t think keeping secrets from the agency like this is a good idea; seems a little suspicious.”</p><p>“Don’t you trust me?” asked Kay with a tone of hurt.</p><p>“With my life Kay. But-”</p><p>“Then show some faith and let me do this.” the agent interrupted. “I just need to do a bit of digging to confirm my suspicions and if I’m wrong then I’ll have a peace of mind and be able to focus on the task at hand.”</p><p>“And what if you’re right? What if S.H.U.S.H. has been compromised.”</p><p>Kay turned away from Donald. “I don’t want to think about what would happen then, but I can tell you it wouldn’t be pretty. Just keep your beak shut until we know for sure, alright Donald? Do it for me?”</p><p>“Alright, for you.” Donald said with a sigh.</p><p>“Thank you. Now then let’s see what we have...oh hello, what’s this?”</p><p>Kay leaned in closer to the screen and seemed to perk up slightly. “An embedded file with an encrypted code on a hidden computer in a secret base? Oh there is definitely something here, something they don’t want us to find.”</p><p>Kay rooted through a few desk drawers before she managed to find a small USB and plugged it into the computer, moving all of the files onto the portable disk.</p><p>“I’ll have Gizmo analyze this back at headquarters, he may be a bit loopy but he knows how to be discreet when he needs to.” Kay said, pocketing the device. “In the meantime, just keep quiet and trust no one. Got it Double Duck?”</p><p>Donald nodded, trying to ignore the guilt slowly creeping up his back. He really hoped that he was making the right call here.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>About three days after that incident, Donald was called into Alexander Puffin’s office for a chat.</p><p>“You wanted to see me sir?” Donald said, peeking his head through the door of the director’s office.</p><p>“Ah yes. Double Duck, please come in and take a seat.” Alexander Puffin replied.</p><p>Donald swiftly complied, gently closing the door behind him before plopping down in front of the director’s desk.</p><p>“So how has everything been? Care for a drink?” Alexander said, sliding a glass of whiskey over to Donald.</p><p>“No thanks, I don’t drink much.”</p><p>“Alright, more for me then.” the puffin shrugged, downing the glass himself. “Now then Double Duck, let’s get down to business. I’m sure you’re aware of the rumors going around the agency regarding a possible traitor among us.”</p><p>Donald nodded.</p><p>“And you know that these are serious allegations correct? Especially given the current state of affairs?”</p><p>“Yes sir, what’s your point?”</p><p>Alexander leaned back in his chair. “Well agent, I hate to be the one to tell you this. But S.H.U.S.H. has reason to believe that your partner, agent Kay, may very well be the traitor.”</p><p>Donald’s jaw dropped. “Kay? No, it couldn’t be her. She’s been a part of S.H.U.S.H. for years, she’s twenty-two’s daughter, she’d never turn on us.”</p><p>“I thought so too but she’s been acting increasingly erratic as of late, acting overly cautious, almost like she’s keeping some kind of secret.” Alexander replied. “Now then, as her partner and lover you’re closer to her than anyone else so I have to ask:”</p><p>The aged puffin leaned in closer to Donald. “Is there anything you’d like to tell us? Anything Kay might be hiding from the agency or strange behaviors we should know about?”</p><p>Donald sucked in a breath, he knew Kay told him to trust nobody but at the same time he couldn’t help but feel like he was betraying the agency when doing so. Which left him at a tough crossroads: the love of his life or the organization he swore loyalty to. Kay hasn’t steered him wrong before but then again this wasn’t like the other times, this war was clearly starting to wear on her.</p><p>In the end, Donald went with his gut and simply replied. “Nope, sorry. I’ve got nothing to report, at least nothing that can’t be chalked up to stress.”</p><p>Alexander frowned and sat back in his chair, clearly dissatisfied with that answer. “Alright then Double Duck, if you say so. Just let Kay know we’re going to be keeping an eye on her when you see her again, dismissed.”</p><p>Once Donald was clear of his boss’s office, he let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. That was too close of a call, he swore that Alexander Puffin was onto them for a few seconds there.</p><p>‘I really hope Gizmo can get that USB decoded soon, I don’t know how much longer I can take this.’ Donald thought to himself as he walked back to his office, trying his hardest not to look suspicious.</p><p>He was nervous, justifiably so. There was indeed a traitor in S.H.U.S.H. and while he did trust Kay, there was still a small seed of doubt in his mind as to whether or not she’s been entirely honest; there were sleeper agents out there after all.</p><p>Right when he walked into his office, Donald’s phone started to ring with Kay’s caller ID coming on the small screen.</p><p>“Hi, Kay what’s-”</p><p>“I WAS RIGHT!” Kay screamed from the other end.</p><p>Donald dug a finger into his ear, trying to get the ringing to stop after Kay had shouted in his ear. “What? What are you talking about?”</p><p>“S.H.U.S.H. has been infiltrated! That file we got back in Stepford, it was a detailed plan of F.O.W.L.’s double agents within S.H.U.S.H. and how they were going to penetrate the agency! There’s not just one traitor, there’s a whole bunch of them! Even Alexander Puffin is in on it! Oh I knew there was something off about him!”</p><p>Donald nearly choked on his own spit in shock. “Are you serious?”</p><p>“Dead serious. Look you need to get out of headquarters now, I’ve got a feeling Alexander’s caught on to my investigation. Mom- I mean agent 22’s already gone missing and I think he’s going after us next” Kay explained. “Get to the roof, me and a few other loyalists are waiting for you there. Don’t let anybody know what you’re doing, F.O.W.L. could be anywhere.”</p><p>Donald quickly flipped his phone closed when Kay hung up, the full weight of the situation hitting him like a truck. The duck quickly calmed himself down, he couldn’t afford to panic right now; he needed to move.</p><p>Grabbing his essentials like his tranquilizer gun, a few flash and smoke grenades, and his grappling hook. Donald walked out of his office towards the elevator, all while making sure to keep aware of what was around him. He just had to make it to the roof, that’s all he had to do.</p><p>“Where ya going Double Duck?”</p><p>Donald looked over to see two of his fellow agents behind him: B-Barry and Perry, a tall blonde duck and a platypus respectively.</p><p>“Oh you know, just headed up to the roof for some fresh air. I’ve been really busy lately, just thought I’d clear my head a bit.”</p><p>B-Barry smiled. “Mind if we join you, I could use some fresh air myself.”</p><p>Donald wanted to say no, but at the same time he couldn’t afford to look suspicious so he merely nodded and stepped into the elevator with the other two men. Where they slowly rode up in awkward silence, Donald nervously darted his eyes between them.</p><p>On the next floor, they were joined by three other agents who positioned themselves so that Donald was completely surrounded. It wasn’t until the duck noticed that they all seemed fairly tensed up that he realized he was surrounded by the enemy; they kept looking at him from the corners of their eyes, their fingers clenching and unclenching at their sidearms, and he could see the sweat running down Agent P’s neck.</p><p>He knew that he couldn’t get away without making a scene now, so Donald simply threw caution into the wind and said:</p><p>“Before we start, does anybody want to get out?”</p><p>There was a moment of silence...and all hell broke loose.</p><p>Bond the pelican was the first to move, whipping out an electric baton and lunging for Donald who was narrowly able to slap the weapon out of his hands before he was grabbed by the other four F.O.W.L. agents in the elevator with him who forced him up against the wall while one of them hit the emergency stop button.</p><p>Three of the agents kept him pinned while B Barry pulled out a pair of magnetic handcuffs and moved for Donald, but if there’s one thing Donald was known for: it was being one of the best bruiser’s S.H.U.S.H. had ever known.</p><p>Through sheer brute force, Donald ripped his arm free of the F.O.W.L. agent on the right and cracked B Barry right across his smug face, slamming him against the elevator doors. The former sailor then turned and head butted the double agent to his left to free his other arm before slamming a double axe-handle on top of the agent holding his midsection.</p><p>The next few seconds were a total blur to Donald, who was acting on pure instinct alone, just a flurry of punches and kicks as he took on five highly skilled secret agents in cramped quarters combat. They may have outnumbered him but the F.O.W.L. agents were no match for Donald’s fury and the S.H.U.S.H. agent emerged victorious with the groaning bodies of his opponents covering the floor.</p><p>Taking in a few labored breaths, Donald grabbed a hold of the elevator doors and attempted to pry them open; only to slam them closed again when he saw several agents rushing towards the elevator to apprehend him, whether they were of F.O.W.L. or S.H.U.S.H. he wasn’t even sure of anymore but it didn’t really matter in the end. All he knew was that he had to get out of there or he was a sitting...aquatic fowl, he really had to figure out how those sayings went someday.</p><p>Leaping up and pulling the emergency hatch open, Donald grabbed a hold of the cables and shimmed upwards until he reached the fourth floor and pried the doors open once more. Letting out a sigh of relief when there wasn’t a hit squad coming for him.</p><p>But the moment he took a step out, he was immediately fired upon and was forced to take cover behind a desk.</p><p>“FOURTH FLOOR! HE’S ON THE FOURTH FLOOR, ALL AVAILABLE UNITS MOVE IN!” the armored agent exclaimed into his radio.</p><p>Right then the PA system cracked to life. “A warning to all agents. It has come to my attention that agents Double Duck and Kay K have been acting as sleeper agents for F.O.W.L. all this time and should be considered traitors to S.H.U.S.H.. All agents are instructed to apprehend them on sight, do NOT let them leave this building.”</p><p>Donald grit his teeth. ‘Alexander you little piece of-grablemnaigjajmf!’</p><p>Pulling out one of his smoke grenades, Donald yanked the pin and threw in over the desk. A cloud of smoke quickly enveloping the entire floor, giving the duck the cover he needed to sprint to the staircase without much trouble.</p><p>Of course the moment he got in there, two agents were waiting for him but a pair of tranquilizer darts quickly put them to sleep, leaving Donald a clear shot to the roof where…</p><p>Nobody was there, the place was completely empty.</p><p>Looking around in disbelief, Donald slumped to his knees. Did...Did Kay lie to him, was she really a traitor who framed him to get him out of the way? He couldn’t believe it, he wouldn’t...and yet.</p><p>The sound of clicking guns brought Donald out of his thoughts as he looked behind him to see an entire squad of agents with their guns drawn.</p><p>“End of the road Double Duck.” the front of the pack, agent Crossbones, sneered. “Come quietly and we might be able to give you a-”</p><p>The agent never got to finish his sentence as a hail of bullets suddenly rained down upon him and his fellow agents, scattering the whole team like rats.</p><p>“DONALD! HURRY!”</p><p>The duck spun around on his heel to see that a helicopter was now hovering above the roof of S.H.U.S.H. headquarters with Kay K seated at the mounted gun and a rope ladder dangling below.</p><p>Donald couldn’t help but grin. ‘I knew it! I knew she wasn’t a traitor!’</p><p>The S.H.U.S.H. agent sprinted across the helipad, grabbing onto the ladder and climbing up it as fast as he possibly could, bullets streaking past him as he did so.</p><p>Once he was on board, Kay turned to the pilot. “Alright that’s everyone! GO! GO! GO!”</p><p>The pilot nodded and pushed forward on the joystick, sending the helicopter soaring away from the compromised agency to safety.</p><p>Donald let out a breath. “Phew, thanks for having my back Kay.”</p><p>“I always will Donald, we’re partners after all.” The agent replied, giving Donald a kiss on his forehead.</p><p>Dropping down into one of the helicopter’s seats, Donald suddenly noticed that the only other person in the helicopter with him, apart from Kay, was the pilot (who he would later learn was named Charles) and Gizmo.</p><p>“Is it just us?”</p><p>Kay solemnly nodded. “They’re the only ones I know for sure don’t have any connection to F.O.W.L. I couldn’t trust anybody else.”</p><p>“Great, just great. So what now?”</p><p>“We go into hiding, regroup and recover. Figure out our next move, with S.H.U.S.H. under F.O.W.L.’s control and us marked as fugitives we don’t have a lot of options at the moment; we’ll have to lay low until we figure out a way to expose F.O.W.L., or at the very least clear our names.” Kay replied. “Mom has a safehouse up in the rocky mountains we can use, not even S.H.U.S.H. knows about it. We’ll be safe there, for a while at least.”</p><p>Donald bowed his head, only for Kay to put a finger under his chin and lift his head back up.</p><p>“Hey, we’ll get through this. We’re the best S.H.U.S.H. has to offer, trust me.” Kay said in a comforting tone.</p><p>Donald swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay Kay I trust you.”</p><p>As the helicopter disappeared over the horizon, far from F.O.W.L.’s watchful eyes. Donald knew that things were only going to get worse from here on out.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*****************************</p>
</div><p>The kids faces were frozen in a state of shock, some in awe at the feats Donald had managed to pull off while others were more in horror at the current turn of events that his life took.</p><p>“Wow, that was intense to say the least.” Violet remarked.</p><p>“Understatement of the year.” Louie replied.</p><p>“But they did win right?” Dewey added. “I mean F.O.W.L. isn’t around anymore, so they must have won.”</p><p>“They had to have, but I get a feeling it came at a cost.” Huey said. “Maybe that’s why Kay isn’t around anymore.”</p><p>The others were inclined to agree, but despite knowing that their Uncle Donald was indeed victorious over F.O.W.L. none of them could get rid of the pit in their stomachs from what they had just learned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You ever see 'captain america: winter soldier'? If not, you should, it was my inspiration for this entire scene.</p><p>But Donald, Kay, and their plucky tagalongs are now on the run; now some of the most wanted ducks in the country. How will they get out of this one? </p><p>in other news, I'm sure you've all noticed the new cover art on the story; huge thanks to my friend, Vanilla0Chinchilla for doing that piece. You can find the rest of her art here: https://vanilla0chinchilla.tumblr.com/</p><p>(also points to anyone who can find the 'phineas and ferb' reference in this chapter, along with the 'avatar, the last airbender.' reference in chapter 11)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. ducks on the run</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Webby looked over her handiwork with a quizzical expression, thinking through all the factors and possibilities that she’s gleaned through the info provided by Donald’s journal.</p><p>In front of her was a massive cork board similar to the one she used to track Scrooge Mcduck’s family, only on a smaller scale, all dedicated to figuring out if Kay K really was her mother and if Donald may have been her father.</p><p>There were plenty of factors that pointed to a yes: Kay was granny’s adoptive daughter, she was about the right age to be the young duck’s daughter, she shared a lot of personality traits with Kay, and Donald and Kay were very clearly sexually active when they were still together so it wasn’t completely far fetched. However there was also plenty that was getting in the way too: Kay wasn’t mentioned to be expecting during Donald’s tales, that and the timing was all off as she would have to be at least a few years older for her to have been conceived at the time, not to mention that Kay and Donald likely had a falling out somewhere down the road and someone else might have been her father.</p><p>She wanted it to be true, she wanted Donald and Kay to be her parents if for no other reason than to simply know who they are (well that and the pleasure of being biologically related to some of the greatest adventurers of all time), but at the same time she didn’t want to get her hopes up if her theory proved to be wrong and she really wasn’t their daughter. Louie did have a point, she didn’t know for sure if Kay was even her mom.</p><p>A series of knocks coming from her bedroom door snapped Webby out of her thoughts. The duck walked over and smiled when she saw the triplets and violet standing outside with the journal clutched in her hands.</p><p>“So, shall we continue our group reading?” asked the raven haired girl.</p><p>Webby nodded, subtly eying the chart behind her. For better or for worse, she needed answers.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>Being a criminal on the run was absolutely terrible.</p><p>It had been a couple months since him, Kay, and a few other agents fled from the infiltrated S.H.U.S.H.. During that time a full manhunt had been put out for them with a large reward for anyone who managed to bring them in, they were labeled terrorists that betrayed the country to a criminal organization. So practically everyone, their mothers, and their pets were trying to track them down.</p><p>Luckily, Agent 22’s safe house was so far out of the way it was practically invisible, if albeit a bit more luxurious than Donald expected.</p><p>The outside wasn’t much to look at, because there wasn’t much of an outside at all, just a small reinforced steel door built into the side of a mountain overlooking a cliff. But once inside, Donald was treated to something that seemed more like one of Uncle Scrooge’s summer homes with a survivalist chiq. Several well furnished bedrooms with attached baths, two living rooms, a kitchen with enough food to keep them fed for years, a rec room, a workout room with a small pool, a garage with a secret exit hidden behind a waterfall, and a surveillance center with a private connection to most satellite and radio channels that was completely untraceable; it was everything you could want out of a secure bunker and more.</p><p>Although gilded bars still made a prison.</p><p>At first Donald was fine taking a bit of a break after the ordeal he survived back at S.H.U.S.H. headquarters, some time to catch his breath and ready himself up for the inevitable showdown with F.O.W.L.. But as time went on and days turned into weeks, having to wake up to the same four walls every day and be confined to the bunker out of fear of being spotted if he took so much as a step outside, Donald found himself slowly going stir crazy from sheer isolation. There were only so many games of ping pong you could play with the same three people before you started to get sick of it. Cabin fever did not suit Donald well and combined with the fact that he was a criminal in the eyes of the public, he started to get a bit more short tempered. Normally Kay would help calm him down from it, bring him down to earth, but she was in no condition to serve as his anchor when she was just as bitter about the situation as he was.</p><p>Donald couldn’t exactly blame her for getting upset at the hand she was dealt. She had been a loyal S.H.U.S.H. agent since she had been indoctrinated into the agency at sixteen (the youngest possible recruitment age), had gone on hundreds of successful missions, rose up the ranks to become one of the top S.H.U.S.H. agents, received numerous awards for her service, and what was her reward for all that effort? Getting backstabbed by the same group that she had trusted all these years, thrown out onto the street and forced to fend for herself against a world that had been turned against her in one fell swoop. Not to mention the fact that any attempts to locate agent 22 had all but failed and with F.O.W.L. running rampant, there was a good chance that she was dead. All of it was too much for Kay to bear and while she found solace in Donald initially, their combined stress mixed together like nitro and glycerine.</p><p>Which is probably why they started fighting.</p><p>With Gizmo permanently parked in the surveillance room, trying to monitor F.O.W.L.’s activities, and Charles the pilot making sure that the bunker remained secure and in working order. Donald and Kay could only take their frustrations out on each other; it started off slow with a decline of physical affection between them, before turning into passive aggressive comments, which eventually blossomed into full blown screaming matches between them.</p><p>Of course they never managed to stay mad at each other. It was a cycle of sorts: they’d get angry over a minor disagreement, it would escalate and they’d start shouting at each other until one of them angrily stormed off, they’d take some time to cool down, then apologize to each other and be affectionate with each other until the next disagreement, wash, rinse, and repeat. Donald knew it was putting a strain on them and it was only a matter of time before they broke things off for good.</p><p>But the worst part of this for Donald wasn’t being confined to a bunker for months on end, nor was it the fact that the massive strain was being put upon the relationship between him and the love of his life was slowly tearing them apart.</p><p>No, the worst part was tuning into the news and having to see the shocked and betrayed looks on the faces of his family when they found out their dear sweet nephew was a ‘criminal’.</p><p>Naturally when reporters questioned the billionaire about his thoughts on the matter, Scrooge vehemently denied that Donald was guilty and claimed that it was a set up or a misunderstanding; Donald Duck a terrorist? Preposterous, there’s no way that sweet sailor would ever turn his back on the people he cared about like that. But Donald could see through the facade, the pain behind the rich duck’s eyes as he watched the closest thing he ever had to a son turn into an enemy, Scrooge put on a show of strength because he couldn’t afford to appear weak but Donald knew that he was sobbing behind closed doors. Della wasn’t doing any better with it, the moment this all started she seemed to seclude herself from the public eye entirely, the few times she did make an appearance she was a complete wreck: hair messy, eyes bloodshot, clothes wrinkled and stained. The poor girl looked dead inside and with good reason, Donald was her best friend in the whole wide world, they had been close as kids and always had each other's back, to have the person she trusted most in the world seemingly turn against her was enough to shatter her, heart and soul.</p><p>And Donald was completely helpless to do anything about it, he couldn’t go see them and reassure them that everything was going to be fine, he couldn’t comfort them and try to convince them that he was being framed, all he could do was sit and watch them from the other side of a screen as they reacted to a member of their flock going rogue.</p><p>Eventually Donald couldn’t take it anymore and ended up putting his fist through the tv in a bout of grief induced rage, much to Charles’ displeasure.</p><p>Once he calmed down, he started thinking as it was about the only thing he could do with all the free time he had on his hands (when he wasn’t arguing with Kay K that is).</p><p>As much as they’ve been butting heads recently, Donald still loved Kay K with all his heart. She was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him and he didn’t want to lose her, especially not now when he needed her more than ever. But with the way things were, that outcome was becoming more and more likely by the day.</p><p>Donald had to do something, he couldn’t just sit idly by and watch Kay slip through his fingers. So he kept thinking, trying to figure out a way they could stay together even with the world pushing them apart.</p><p>Then, like an epiphany, it suddenly came to him and Donald knew exactly what he had to do; what he needed to do.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>Donald knocked on Kay’s door. “Kay? Can I talk to you? It’s important.”</p><p>There was a moment of silence before Kay let out a sigh “sure, come on in.”</p><p>The male S.H.U.S.H. agent pushed his way through the door and had to physically suppress a blush at the sight of his partner/girlfriend wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of yoga pants, now was not the time to get flustered in the face of Kay’s beauty.</p><p>Donald slowly made his way around Kay’s bed and took a seat beside her, a brief glance was the only acknowledgement she gave to his presence before turning her focus back to the object clutched in her hands. The former sailor leaned in closer to get a better look and found that it was an old, framed photograph that displayed two very familiar figures: Kay K and Agent 22. They were much younger in the photograph with Kay having the appearance of a seven year old and Agent 22 clearly had a few years shaved off of her, the older agent was holding the young girl in her lap and a small plush cat was clutched in Kay’s hands, bright smiles were adorning both of their faces.</p><p>“She never wanted me to be a secret agent you know.” Kay mumbled.</p><p>“Hmmm?”</p><p>“Mom, a when I found out she was a secret agent I practically begged her to teach me how to become one myself. She kept saying that it was too dangerous, even after I managed to convince her to train me for S.H.U.S.H., and that I shouldn’t be a part of the secret agent life. But I was too excited by the mere idea of it to care.” Kay replied. “Now I know why she tried to keep me out of it. In a life like this, you’re constantly living on the edge with the threat of death and betrayal always lingering overhead; I just thought I was good enough to avoid it, boy was I wrong…”</p><p>Kay placed the photo back on the nightstand and started to sob. “It’s...it’s not fair Donald.”</p><p>Donald said nothing, he merely wrapped his arms around Kay and pulled her into a tight embrace, soon enough the raven haired beauty was crying into his chest.</p><p>“I can’t take it, I used to be on top of the world. Now my mother’s missing, my friends want to kill me, and the organization I gave my life to has turned on me; I’ve got nothing left, nothing but you.”</p><p>“Then marry me.”</p><p>The sound of shattering glass cut through the air.</p><p>“Sorry! My hand slipped! I’ll clean it up!” Charles shouted from down the hall.</p><p>Kay quickly pushed herself away from her boyfriend and looked at him with a completely stupefied expression, her train of thought derailed. “Wh- what?!”</p><p>“I’m serious.” Donald replied, getting on one knee in front of her. “Marry me. I love you Kay and I want to be in your life, now and forever.”</p><p>The former sailor took her hands in his own. “Think about it. Once F.O.W.L.’s been dealt with we can get away from all this, from the secret agent life, start over and spend the rest of our lives together, maybe even have a family. Just you and me against the world Kay, what do you say?”</p><p>Apparently Kay couldn’t say anything, she had been completely shocked into silence. Merely staring at Donald with wide eyes and a gaping beak, trying and failing to come up with any kind of response to such an unashamed declaration of love for her.</p><p>Eventually, her brain seemed to reboot. “I….I-”</p><p>But before Kay could speak another word, the bedroom door burst open and Gizmo flew in with a maniac smile on his face.</p><p>“I’ve figured it out!” The tech geek exclaimed.</p><p>“What?” Donald replied</p><p>“F.O.W.L.’s plan! I know what they’re trying to do! It took months of searching but I’ve pieced it together, meet me in the comm room and I’ll lay it all out!”</p><p>The two remained in the room, a stark silence shared between them, the moment having been completely ruined by Gizmo's intervention. After a few more minutes, Kay ended up being the first one to regain her composure</p><p>“Well, let’s not keep him waiting.” Kay said, brushing herself off as she stood up.</p><p>“Alright, but we’re not done talking about this.” Donald replied with a sigh.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>On the table in front of them was a whole mess of documents and photographs, all tied into various F.O.W.L. activities around the world; everything from cash flow statements to lists of individuals to photos of F.O.W.L. bases. Gizmo had clearly done his research.</p><p>“Alright, let’s get right down to it. Kay, you were correct when you said you believed that all of F.O.W.L.’s recent activities were meant to act as a diversion to distract S.H.U.S.H. from their real plot. However, the silent takeover of the agency by F.O.W.L. wasn’t their goal at all, it was just another piece of the puzzle.” Gizmo explained as he ran his hands along the table. “You see, F.O.W.L.’s true objective was this:”</p><p>Gizmo held up a large photograph of a launch site in the middle of the jungle.</p><p>“What is it?” Donald questioned.</p><p>“A space station, or rather a rocket meant to launch a space station into orbit. F.O.W.L. has been planning on setting up an orbital base for their activities for quite some time now. But unfortunately, even they lacked the resources needed to accomplish such a project and even if they did, their plans would be uncovered by S.H.U.S.H. in an instant. A solution to both of those problems, however, dropped right into their laps: John D Rockerduck.”</p><p>Kay’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, isn’t he one of S.H.U.S.H.’s top backers?”</p><p>Gizmo nodded in reply. “Yep, turns out he’s been a part of F.O.W.L. for years and has been leading this whole plot. He’s been providing nearly all of the economic capital for the construction of the space station itself from the parts to the labor to the secret jungle base where they’re constructing it, he’s paying for it all; sure the money gets sent through a few fronts to cover his tracks but it still all traces back to Rockerduck. Not to mention having him fund the agency gave F.O.W.L. a foot in the door to S.H.U.S.H., which allowed them to plant several sleeper agents within the agency’s ranks including Alexander Puffin.”</p><p>“Did- Did he poison Hooter?” Donald stuttered out in shock.</p><p>“Yep. Hooter was their only obstacle in the way of a full F.O.W.L. take over so they had to remove him entirely, once Puffin took over it was easy to hide all of F.O.W.L.’s true activities from actual S.H.U.S.H. agents and the ones that did figure it out, like you two, were silenced.”</p><p>“So what do we do?” Asked Kay. “If they get that station into orbit, F.O.W.L. will be able to raid any place on earth without being persecuted by any government authority and with them in control of S.H.U.S.H. We can’t call for back up.”</p><p>“That’s the one part I haven’t quite figured out yet. While I’ve managed to procure you two the means to reach the base undetected by F.O.W.L., actually getting into the base is a different story. I have no idea what sort of defenses they have on the perimeter nor the forces that lie inside the base itself; I was lucky to come across an image of the place at all, getting the layout plans is out of the question..”</p><p>“Well we can’t just sit around and try and figure something out! F.O.W.L. Could launch this thing any day now!” Charles argued.</p><p>Before they could start tearing into each other, Donald interjected. “Why don’t we just improvise?”</p><p>The entire room turned to face the duck.</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>“Improvise, we plan a route to get to F.O.W.L.’s secret base and once we get there we just make up the rest as we go along.” Donald stated. “I mean when we were still working for S.H.U.S.H. our plans rarely ever survived contact with our targets.”</p><p>“He does have a point. But what if we fail and get captured?” Kay added.</p><p>Donald just shrugged. “If we fail then….what more could we possibly lose?”</p><p>Kay opened her mouth for a retort, but immediately snapped it shut again when she realized that Donald was right; they had nothing left to lose, so they might as well risk it all on one last mission.</p><p>“Oh what the heck. I’m on board.” Said Kay.</p><p>Donald then turned to face his two companions. “Are you guys in?”</p><p>“Well, we’ll need a few days to get you guys prepared. We can’t send you out half cocked after-”</p><p>A loud alarm suddenly blaring overhead coupled with a red flashing light stopped Gizmo mid-sentence. The gageteer genius quickly rushed over to the computer console, flicked it over to the bunker’s cameras and adopted a look of horror.</p><p>“They found us...I don’t know how but they found us…”</p><p>The rest of the group joined Gizmo and the console, wide-eyed at the sight of several S.H.U.S.H. agents right at the bunker’s entrance hooking up several high quality explosives to the security door. While the place was built to withstand a forced entry, there was no way it could withstand that kind of ordinance.</p><p>“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Donald screamed.</p><p>“Okay!” Gizmo yelled, clapping his hands together. “Seems that our ‘few days’ just became a now! Double Duck, Kay K, take these!”</p><p>The bird tossed each of them a loaded backpack. “They’re bug out bags. They’ve got false identification papers with new identities and disguises to match, along with enough gadgets and supplies to keep you going! Pack whatever personal effects you need into them and get down to the garage!”</p><p>“What about you and Charles?” Asked Kay, already slipping on the pack.</p><p>“Us?” Charles replied as if Kay had said something stupid. “We’ll buy you guys some extra time.”</p><p>The agents’ eyes widened at the pilot’s implication.</p><p>“What?! No! We can’t just leave you two behind!”</p><p>“You can and you will!” Gizmo barked. “You’re the best field agents S.H.U.S.H. has ever seen, we’re just support. We’d only slow you down out there, no go!”</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“GO!” the scientist yelled, pulling out a ray gun from his lab coat.</p><p>Knowing that those two were set on their path of self sacrifice, Donald and Kay gave each of them a quick hug and a thank you before rushing out of the room.</p><p>After a frantic search of their respective rooms, the duo made it to the elevator to the lower garage just in time to see S.H.U.S.H. forces breach the security door and start shooting.</p><p>“I’M THE BOLD ACTION MAN!” Charles boomed as he returned fire from his cover, Gizmo doing the same.</p><p>It was only a short trip through the elevator, but the sounds of gunfire and explosions made it seem like it lasted for hours. Donald and Kay could only hope that S.H.U.S.H. took their friends alive.</p><p>The second the elevator doors opened, the secret agents started moving. Sprinting over to a dirtbike as quickly as their legs could carry them, Kay taking the front with Donald hopping on right behind her. The female agent started up the two wheeled machine and peeled out of the garage, just barely giving the secret waterfall entrance enough time to open up as they broke through into the surrounding area.</p><p>Thankfully, S.H.U.S.H. didn’t seem to be aware of the secondary escape route and were too busy with the situation upstairs to notice the fleeing ex-agents below them. But Donald and Kay didn’t let their guards down until they had spent the entire day driving away from the scene, never stopping until the moon was high in the sky.</p><p>“Alright.” Kay said through pants. “I think we’re clear. We should probably stop and take a breather.”</p><p>Donald was inclined to agree, it had been a non-stop rush of adrenalin ever since they had abandoned the bunker and they had been speeding through the forests of Colorado straight into the deserts of Utah for a good twelve hours. If they had a tail before they would have certainly lost it by now, considering they jumped three canyons to get here.</p><p>Dismounting the bike, Donald dusted off his hands. “Wow, what an eventful day, huh?”</p><p>“Yep. With Gizmo and Charles gone, we’re the only hope we’ve got left.” Kay replied, placing the bike against some rock formations. “Not just for us, but the whole world.”</p><p>“You know you never answered me back there.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Donald got on one knee again and grabbed Kay’s hands. “Kay K, will you marry me?”</p><p>Kay K’s gaze darted between Donald and her hands for a few seconds before she gently pulled them free of his grip. “Donald, sweetheart, I love you but we need to focus on the matter at hand.”</p><p>“You’re turning me down?” Donald groaned.</p><p>“No! No, I’m not turning you down. I’m just telling you to wait, wait until after we’ve dealt with F.O.W.L. then let me decide. I mean you can wait for me can’t you?”</p><p>Donald bowed his head, clearly disappointed. “Okay, I’ll wait.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Kay replied, pecking Donald on the lips. “Now let’s get camp set up for the night. We’ve got a long trip ahead and we’ll need to be fully rested up for it.”</p><p>Donald nodded and took a moment to look at the stars. He wasn’t a particularly religious person, not when he spent a good portion of his childhood facing down numerous gods across several different pantheons, but he still muttered a silent prayer under his breath to whatever forces that were listening that things would turn out okay for them.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>“Man uncle Donald really had it bad for her didn’t he?” Louie remarked as Webby closed the book once more, their time together having run out.</p><p>“It appears so if he was willing to propose to her.” Violet stated. “Which only raises more questions. If Donald Duck never mentioned Kay K or have any evidence of a wedding…”</p><p>“Then something must have happened when they raided F.O.W.L.’s base that split them up.” Huey finished.</p><p>“But what could have happened? Did she betray him?” Dewey asked.</p><p>“Whatever it was, we’ll have to get to the bottom of it later. It’s late enough as it is and we can’t stay up all night reading through the journal without the risk of getting caught.”</p><p>The rest of the group sounded off in agreement, filing out of Webby’s room. Unfortunately none of them seemed to notice the anxiety-ridden look on the poor girl’s face, her gaze laser focused on her feet.</p><p>She didn’t like where this whole affair with Kay K and Donald Duck was going and she was certain she wasn’t going to like where it was going to end up. But her natural curiosity and lust for mystery wouldn’t allow her to stop reading, not now, she had to know what happened on that fateful day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*tastes fic* hmmm, Needs more angst.</p><p>yeah, Donald and Kay are being pushed to the limit by F.O.W.L. and their machinations; body and mind.<br/>The next chapter will conclude the Double Duck arc but uh...it's not going to be a happy ending....</p><p>and to all the Donald stans out there who have been reading and commenting on my fic, thank you; it really means the world to me that you guys love my story so much and your feedback is what keeps me devoted to this whole thing.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. the final assignment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>is 10K words too long for a single chapter? eh screw it, I'm doing it anyways.</p>
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</p><p>Huey blinked awake, junior woodchuck dream number 3 (the one where he leads the scouting organization in a quest to cast a magic ring into a volcano) being interrupted by something being jabbed into his arm over and over again.</p><p>The eldest triplet grumbled and sat up in bed, rubbing the remaining sleep out of his eyes so that he could get a good look at just what had decided to wake him up in the middle of the night. What he was met with was the sight of Webby next to his bed, one hand holding onto the bunk bed ladder while the other was poking his arm, Uncle Donald’s journal tucked under her arm.</p><p>“Webby? What are you doing?” Huey questioned, still half-asleep.</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep.” The female duck replied. “I have to know what happened to Kay K and Donald.”</p><p>Huey pinched the bridge of his beak in frustration. “Webby, I’m as eager as you are to find out about Uncle Donald’s final mission with Kay. But I need sleep, I promise we’ll read through it the first chance we get tomorrow, okay?”</p><p>Webby let out a sigh and slowly started to descend the ladder with a disappointed look on her face. Huey smiled at his small victory and rested his head upon his pillow, slowly drifting back off to his fantasy dream….</p><p>Only to be dragged back into the waking world again when not one, but two things started to poke his arm over and over again.</p><p>Turning over to face the offenders, Huey groaned at the sight of Webby and Dewey next to his bed with pleading looks on their faces.</p><p>“Et tu, Dewey?”</p><p>“Sorry, but I wasn’t able to get any sleep either.” Dewey shrugged. “Come on Huey, I’m on the edge of my seat here! I wanna hear about the final chapter in Uncle Donald’s S.H.U.S.H. saga!”</p><p>“Just do it!” Louie shouted from the bottom most bunk. “You know they won’t let it go. The sooner we read it the sooner I can go back to sleep!”</p><p>Huey huffed, as much as he hated to admit it, Louie was right. Dewey and Webby would be perfectly willing to keep them up all night if it meant getting closure to the mystery that was Kay K and Uncle Donald’s S.H.U.S.H. career.</p><p>“Fine! But only for a little while then you have to let us sleep.”</p><p>“YAY!” Dewey and Webby cheered, sliding down the ladder while Huey slowly climbed down after them. The kids arranging themselves onto Louie’s bed so that they were all crowded around the journal as Webby began to read it.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>“Okay, let’s go over our cover stories one more time…” Kay said as they pulled up to the train station.</p><p>“My name is Sterling Archer, I’m twenty-two years old and played lacrosse during high school, winning a championship, and would have gone pro if it wasn’t for a tragic accident before I went to college. Now I’m traveling abroad with my girlfriend-”</p><p>“Lana Kane, a twenty-three year old college student working towards a Ph.D in environmental science. We met at a college basketball game two years ago and have decided to take a gap year to see the world together. Good, you still remember and not a moment too soon.” Kay replied. “Looks like we’re here.”</p><p>Five days had passed since Donald and Kay had fled from agent 22’s safehouse up in the rocky mountains and they had spent most of that time on the move, tearing through the backroads of America and evading S.H.U.S.H. and F.O.W.L. at every turn. Their clean getaway meant that they had a massive head start over their pursuers and their intimate knowledge of S.H.U.S.H. infrastructure allowed them to remain hidden from watchful eyes, but after taking a wrong turn at albuquerque they wound up in Las Vegas and had an extremely close call with several S.H.U.S.H. agents stationed there. If it hadn’t been for those showgirls they probably would have been wearing prison jumpsuits right about now.</p><p>Thankfully that was the only hiccup on the duo’s journey, after another day’s worth of travel they managed to arrive at a train station in arizona: the current plan was to hop a train to mexico, haul out to the coast and grab a boat, then sail the rest of the way to peru where F.O.W.L.’s base was located. The route wasn’t exactly the fastest way to get there but with their criminal status making it impossible to get through an airport, this was the best they could do. At least once they got over the border they wouldn’t have to worry about S.H.U.S.H. as much, the agency’s presence was somewhat reduced in forigen countries when compared to the states.</p><p>Of course they still had to get past customs to accomplish that and there was little doubt that the train station would be crawling with agents trying to stop them from crossing the border. But they had prepared for that scenario, in fact they had expected this very thing to happen. As long as they kept their heads down, their disguises on, and got on the train as quickly as possible they’d be perfectly fine.</p><p>Donald just hoped that these fake passports were as good as Gizmo claimed them to be.</p><p>Ditching their bike in an alleyway, Donald and Kay made their way into the train station and immediately took stock of their surroundings.</p><p>“I’ve got five agents on my left and two more in the center. You?” Donald whispered to Kay</p><p>“Six against the furthest wall and three more in that cafe.” Kay whispered back. “An awful lot of agents for a single locale, they must have gotten dispatched after the vegas incident</p><p>Donald shrugged. “We’re the best agents S.H.U.S.H. has ever known, I don’t think they’re willing to take any chances with us.”</p><p>“Of course not, now come on. As far as they’re concerned we’re just a young couple going on vacation, so act like it.”</p><p>Donald nodded and tried not to sweat. Truth be told he was completely freaking out on the inside; here he was, America's most wanted, walking through a densely populated train station that was crawling with S.H.U.S.H. agents, forged ID papers and numerous weapons on his person. If they got caught at any point by literally anyone, be it S.H.U.S.H., the security guards at the station, or simply a good samaritan with a keen eye it would be game over for them. It was quite possibly the most nerve wracking situation he had ever been in and that was coming from Scrooge Mcduck’s nephew.</p><p>He felt a hand tighten around his own, causing him to look up and see Kay staring at him with a rather determined expression that had a calming effect on Donald. No words were exchanged between them, there wasn’t any reason to, he could tell that no matter what happened from here on out, Kay would have his back until the very bitter end; that was enough for him.</p><p>“Next please!” the clerk manning the ticket desk said.</p><p>Donald and Kay seemingly snapped back into reality as they realized they were now at the front of the line.</p><p>“Oh, hi. What’s the soonest train leaving for mexico? We’re in a bit of a hurry here.” Kay asked the clerk.</p><p>The clerk typed away at her keyboard before turning back to the couple. “Well there’s one leaving in about twenty minutes from now, will that do? Keep in mind you’ll have to double time your pace to get there.”</p><p>Donald nodded. “Yes that’s fine. As long as we can get a private compartment.”</p><p>“Alright then, if I can just see your passports then?”</p><p>The ducks gulped and slid their documents underneath the plexiglass barrier, it was the moment of truth.</p><p>The chicken behind the counter looked over the fakes, checking all of the information and layouts of the documents themselves. After five nerve wracking minutes, the girl slid the documents back under the barrier and then tore off a set of tickets from a nearby printer.</p><p>“Everything looks good here! Have a lovely time abroad you two!” The clerk chirped.</p><p>“Thank you so much!” Donald replied, snatching up the papers a bit quicker than was necessary and handed them over to Kay who quickly pocketed her stuff.</p><p>As they walked away from the booth, Donald whispered into Kay’s ear. “Looks like we’re home free.”</p><p>“Not yet.” Kay whispered back. “We still have to get on the train, I just hope these stupid disguises are enough to fool them.”</p><p>“I take it you don’t like the wig?”</p><p>“I hate it.” Kay growled. “Blonde is SO not my color.”</p><p>Donald begged to differ, Kay looked great no matter what she was wearing. But now wasn’t the time to think about that, they had a train to catch after all.</p><p>While the disguises they were wearing were practically paper thin: a blonde wig and sunglasses for Kay, spectacles and a fake beard for Donald, they seemed to work well enough. Being in a crowded area that they could easily blend into certainly helped as well, they managed to pass by at least five S.H.U.S.H. agents without so much as a second glance.</p><p>Then the train came into view,</p><p>“HEY!”</p><p>Donald and Kay froze midstep, a sharp feeling of panic running up their spines, not daring to look behind them.</p><p>‘Maybe they weren’t talking to-’</p><p>“YOU OVER THERE! THE LADY IN THE BLONDE WIG AND THE GUY WITH THE BEARD!”</p><p>The duo winced, it didn’t take a genius to know that this mystery individual was talking about them.</p><p>The former agents prepared themselves for an all out brawl in the middle of the station, subtly reaching for their sidearms as they slowly turned around to face the source of the voice. They were met with a rather lanky rooster holding one of Kay’s makeup kits in his hand.</p><p>“You dropped this back there.” The rooster said, holding out the small trinket for the female duck to take.</p><p>Donald and Kay immediately relaxed, letting out a small sigh of relief, before the latter took the kit and placed it back in her bag.</p><p>“Thank you, I hadn’t even noticed it had fallen out.” Kay said.</p><p>“Don’t mention it ma’am. Hey, since I’ve got your attention can I ask you two something?”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “Sure why not?”</p><p>“Wonderful. See I’m a government agent and we received word that some wanted criminals may have been passing through here in an attempt to cross the border.” the rooster replied as he pulled out a mugshot of Donald and Kay. “you wouldn't have happened to have seen these two around, would ya?”</p><p>“No.” Donald and Kay said in perfect unison.</p><p>“Alright, well if you do see them be sure to let somebody know. These two are EXTREMELY dangerous, you all have a safe trip now.”</p><p>Donald and Kay nodded, slowly walking towards the train until the S.H.U.S.H. agent turned around and then broke out into a full sprint to hop aboard the train; making it right as the automotive started pulling away from the station.</p><p>“Like I said, home free.” Donald remarked, as they walked through the train towards their compartment.</p><p>Kay rolled her eyes “Donald, we just went through a train station. Let’s not throw a party until we bring down F.O.W.L.”</p><p>Eventually they came to their cabin aboard the train, it was a small compartment with a set of bunkbeds on one wall and a cabinet in which to store their personal belonging on the other, along with what could best be described as a broom closet with a toilet inside serving as the bathroom. It wasn’t much, but compared to their usual arrangements of roach motels and abandoned buildings that have sheltered them for the past week it was practically buckingham palace.</p><p>“So, it’s what? Three days until we reach Acapulco?” Donald asked as he stuffed their bags into the cabinets.</p><p>“About that.” Kay stated. “Which means we’ve got about three days of RnR together, just you and me Donald.”</p><p>The seductive tone Kay maintained on that last sentence was not lost on Donald, who quickly sat down beside his partner and leaned into a deep kiss.</p><p>If there was one bit of silver lining to this whole crazy situation, it was that the spark of their relationship had been completely rekindled. Being out of that cramped bunker and back into their natural element of espionage gave them a feeling of control that they hadn’t had for awhile; this in turn caused all the animosity that had developed during those months in agent 22’s safe house to be all but dissolved in a matter of days.</p><p>There was just something romantic about the spy life that reminded Donald and Kay why they had fallen in love in the first place.</p><p>They had started being physically affectionate again while on the run, but those were always rushed instances that forced them to be ready to run at any moment. This was the first time they were truly able to take it slow and enjoy each other.</p><p>Their kiss soon deepened, becoming more passionate as their hands slowly started to wander their bodies; clothes came off and a few hours later Donald found himself stumbling out of the cabin, hair messed up, clothes wrinkled, and a drunken smile on his face.</p><p>“Ah, it’s just like when we first started dating.” Donald swooned.</p><p>Right then Donald’s stomach decided to let him know how empty it was with a loud grumble that filled the entire hallway, which was only natural after the...workout, he had just gotten.</p><p>After ensuring his fake beard was properly fixed upon his face, Donald made his way to the dining car. He had to be quick though, they made have been safer on the train than on the road but the threat of capture was still there; Donald couldn’t risk being spotted by anyone who could recognize him.</p><p>“DONNIE?!”</p><p>Donald let out an eep and spun on his heel, pulling out his tranquilizer gun on instinct and pointing it at whatever individual was behind him.</p><p>In his usual unlucky fashion, likely the result of some unknown vendetta that the forces of the universe had against him, Donald found himself face to face with the very last person in the world he wanted to run into: Della Duck. Who was standing there with a completely surprised look on her face, not at the sight of a gun being leveled at her face but the sight of her brother who had vanished for months after being declared a criminal.</p><p>“Della? What are you doing here?!” Donald exclaimed, lowering his gun.</p><p>“Me?! What are you doing here? Mister Criminal!”</p><p>“Hey, I’m no criminal!</p><p>Della crossed her arms. “Really? So that’s not your face plastered on wanted posters across the country?!”</p><p>“I was framed! So was Kay!” Donald protested. “Okay look, I promise I can explain everything to you; no lies, just the truth.”</p><p>Della moved to take a step back, seemingly planning to make a run for it, but Donald grabbed a hold of her wrist and shot her a pleading look.</p><p>“Please Della, please just hear me out. Please…”</p><p>Della looked straight into her the eyes of her twin, seeing him practically begging her to give him a chance, and she sighed. “Alright fine, but your excuse had better be good.”</p><p>“Thank you. Now come on, we can talk in the dining car.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“And that’s the roast duck for you sir and the chicken Parmesan for you ma’am.” The waiter said, placing their respective dishes in front of the ducks. “Will there be anything else for you today?”</p><p>“No thank you.” Donald replied.</p><p>The waiter nodded and walked off to attend to his other guests.</p><p>“Did you really have to wait until after we ordered food to explain yourself?” Della questioned</p><p>Donald stuck a piece of roast duck in his mouth. “I haven’t been able to get a good meal in a week, sue me.”</p><p>“Okay, enough stalling. Mind telling me what the heck is going on and where you’ve been?”</p><p>“Depends. What have you heard?”</p><p>Della raised an eyebrow. “Why does that matter?”</p><p>“It matters because I need to know how much I need to explain, I don’t want to go over what you already know, or what you think you know.” Donald shot back.</p><p>“Fair enough.” The pilot huffed. “So what I’ve heard is that while you were being a desk jockey at that big government agency, you came across some important secrets that Kay convinced you to turn over to a terrorist organization called F.O.W.L. that she had been working for as a spy. When you got caught, you pledged loyalty to F.O.W.L. and turned yourself over to them. Since then you’ve been working for them as a criminal.”</p><p>Della started to grit her teeth as anger induced tears started running down her cheeks.</p><p>“Do...do you know how hard it was to wake up and get that kind of news? To hear that the Duck you grew up with, the one that you thought would always have your back through thick and thin, would turn against everything he seemed to stand for? To betray everyone that cared about him? It hurt Donald, it felt like you crushed my heart and then ate it.” Della sobbed. “And don’t even get me started on what you did to Scrooge, ever since you defected to F.O.W.L. he’s become this...hollow shell. I barely even see him around the manor anymore, he’s always locked in his room or throwing himself into his company! We haven’t even gone on an adventure in the last few months!”</p><p>Della slammed her fists on the table. “That’s why I convinced him to go on this trip, to check out a lead on el dorado, you weren’t there to cheer him up so I had to do it! It’s just….it’s hard on us Donald, really hard, losing you like this. So please, tell me why you did all this; maybe I can at least get some closure.”</p><p>“Well Della, I promised you the truth; and the truth is that...none of that actually happened.”</p><p>Della looked up at her brother in disbelief.</p><p>“For starters I wasn’t some government clerk, I was actually a member of a secret spy organization called S.H.U.S.H. and I can prove it.”</p><p>Donald reached into a hidden compartment in his jacket and pulled out his S.H.U.S.H. badge. He knew he probably should have chucked it a long time ago, if for no other reason to ensure his cover was maintained, but the duck couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the badge. If it was because of nostalgia, a symbol of hope, or simply because he wanted to have proof of his secret life at all he didn’t know; all he knew is that something made him hold onto his S.H.U.S.H. ID.</p><p>A course of action he was glad to have taken, as he now had undeniable proof of his claims to Della whose eyes were nearly popping out of her head at the sight of it.</p><p>“I’ve been traveling around the world, fighting bad guys as a secret agent with Kay as my partner. That’s why I was always busy with ‘work’ and never got to see you guys that often.”</p><p>“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you betrayed them.” Della replied.</p><p>“Here’s the thing, S.H.U.S.H. betrayed us. Several months ago we started a war with F.O.W.L., that terrorist organization you mentioned, because they were one of the biggest threats to global security. It wasn’t until Kay did some digging that we realized F.O.W.L. had infiltrated S.H.U.S.H. and gotten some of their agents into high ranking positions. F.O.W.L. caught onto our discovery and tried to get us out of the way, I was barely able to escape S.H.U.S.H. headquarters alive!” Donald exclaimed. “Once we slipped through their fingers, F.O.W.L. decided the next best thing was to brand us traitors and organize a manhunt for us so they can focus on their own plot.”</p><p>That got the pilot’s attention. “Wait, what plot?”</p><p>“F.O.W.L. is trying to put a space station in orbit, that way they can stay out of reach of all government authorities and rob the world to their heart’s content. That’s why I’m here with Kay, we’re trying to get to the launch site and stop them so we can clear our names.”</p><p>“So….you didn’t betray anyone?”</p><p>Donald leaned in closer to Della. “Della, does it look like I’m lying to you?”</p><p>Della searched her brother’s face for any hint of deception on his part, but she came up empty handed; Donald really was being completely honest with her.</p><p>“Wow, that’s actually a relief.” Della chuckled. “I should have known this whole thing was suspicious right from the start.”</p><p>“Don’t feel too bad about it, F.O.W.L. managed to fool everyone. I don’t blame you.”</p><p>The pilot smiled before a sudden thought seemed to come to mind.</p><p>“You know I’m gonna have to tell uncle Scrooge about this right?”</p><p>Donald nodded. It was only fair, the old duck deserved to have a piece of mind.</p><p>“We’re also coming with you guys.”</p><p>That made Donald nearly choke on the piece of roast duck in his throat, barely managing to spit out the offending piece of poultry into his napkin.</p><p>“W-what? N-no, you can’t-”</p><p>“I don’t wanna hear it.” Della interjected. “I’m not about to let my brother face an entire criminal organization on his own, you’re gonna need backup and Scrooge and I are the best team you could ask for. You <b>need</b> us.”</p><p>Donald sighed. “There’s no way I’m talking you out of this is there?</p><p>“I won’t lose my brother again Donald.” Della replied with a shake of her head</p><p>“Alright fine, let’s finish up here and then we can tell uncle Scrooge the plan.”</p><p>“Great! So, you have any other secret lives you’ve been keeping from us?” The female twin joked.</p><p>“Well I was the Duck Avenger back in high school.”</p><p>That time Della was the one to end up choking on her food, doing so in identical fashion to Donald before spitting her chicken onto her napkin.</p><p>“W-what?! No way, the Duck Avenger died years ago, I was there!.”</p><p>“The last conversation we had, when I was Paperinik, was when you were flying up to the evronian’s ship and you told me that you were worried about your brother and how he seemed to be disappearing in the middle of the night, returning with bruises and wounds.” Donald said with a smirk.</p><p>Della gasped, her jaw very nearly unhinging and slamming onto the table. The only way Donald could have possibly known that is if he was-</p><p>“You really were Paperink! B-but...how? When? Why?”</p><p>“It’s a long story Della, one that I’d love to tell you later. Right now I have to use the little duck’s room, in the meantime.” Donald pulled out a music player and handed it to his sister. “How about some tunes while you wait? I’ll be back soon.”</p><p>“Alright, but don’t even try ducking out on me! I’ve got <b>so</b> many questions for you!” Della said, putting the headphones on and sealing her fate.</p><p>Donald nodded and quickly made his way to the bathrooms in the restaurant, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat on the toilet. He pulled up his sleeve and looked down at his watch, counting thirty seconds exactly for emerging once again into the dining room.</p><p>Looking over at their table, Donald let out a sigh of relief at the sight of his sister fast asleep at the table with the music player dangling over the side and her face buried in her chicken parm.</p><p>“Thank you total reset button.” Donald muttered, pulling the music player out of Della’s ears and pocketing it.</p><p>One of the gadgets Gizmo had packed them in their escape bags was a little thing called ‘the total reset button’ that acted as a memory wipe of sorts on anyone who listened to the audio file. It was a bit difficult to use considering you had to get the subject to listen to it for thirty seconds straight, but if one could trick a person into listening to it the device could be quite handy.</p><p>For example, you could make a family member forget they ever even saw you on a train along with any conversations you may have held.</p><p>Donald really hated that he had to do that to her, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He couldn’t risk getting her caught in the crossfire of the raid on the F.O.W.L. site and he certainly couldn’t let her remember that he was a secret agent either; granted he didn’t have to tell her he was Paperinik either, but he figured that he might as well have a bit of fun if he was going to wipe her memory anyways.</p><p>Kissing her on the top of her head, Donald whispered to her. “Sleep well princess. I promise that once this is all over, the first thing I’m going to do is go home and tell you guys everything. No more secrets.”</p><p>With that, Donald dropped a few bills on the table and exited the dining car, retreating to his cabin where Kay was fast asleep with a content smile on her face.</p><p>Hopefully he could get through the rest of this trip without any more unexpected encounters.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>Fortunately, the surprise meeting with Della was the only familiar face Donald and Kay ran into during their journey. The rest of their three days traveling was relatively uneventful, most of their time aboard the train was spent inside of their cabin going over the plan to raid F.O.W.L.’s headquarters or snuggling together.</p><p>Once they hit Acapulco, it was a quick jaunt down to the bay to rent a boat and sail out to sea. Normally sailing from Mexico all the way down to Peru would have been a difficult task, especially for two people on a small sailing vessel; but on the open waters, Donald was in his element and such a trip was little more than a sunday stroll to him.</p><p>Eventually, after another two days on the open waters, the two found themselves about a mile off shore from the F.O.W.L. base.</p><p>Gizmo’s photos really didn’t do the place proper justice. The facility was locked up like a fortress, a massive concrete wall lining the perimeter, egghead guards swarming around like worker ants, numerous booby traps both hidden and in plain view in the surrounding jungle, and a massive rocket towering over the whole production like a sentinel; and that was only what they could see through their binoculars, they didn’t even know what horrors awaited them inside the base.</p><p>“Alright, so this is as far as Gizmo’s intel can get us. Everything from here on out is up to us Double Duck, any ideas?” Kay remarked, scanning the coast for any potential secret entrances with Donald doing the same.</p><p>The male agent didn’t give an immediate reply, his focus placed entirely on the trial in front of them. Going in the front door was obviously out, they lacked the firepower to simply fight their way in; climbing up the hill next to the base was also useless, they’d be spotted before they got there and even if they weren’t, the thick foliage likely held a whole obstacle course full of booby traps that even their F.O.W.L. training wouldn’t be able to see them through. They needed to find a way to get around all of it entire- wait a minute.</p><p>Donald zoomed in his binoculars and smiled when he saw a large drainage pipe sticking out of the side of the hill. There wasn’t even a grate over it!</p><p>The raven haired duck moved her binoculars to match her boyfriend’s and adopted a similar expression of glee.</p><p>“We can come at them from below! They’ll never see it coming!” Kay exclaimed. “Good eye!”</p><p>Donald nodded and smooched Kay on the cheek. “I’ll get the wetsuits, you make sure our bags are all packed. Once we get in that base we can’t turn back; we either leave as heroes or we don’t leave at all.”</p><p>“Of course. But it’s not like I’ve got much left to lose at this point, go big or go home.”</p><p>As Donald turned to retrieve their equipment, the full weight of what he had just said settled in that gave him a moment of pause. There was a very realistic chance that he would die today. Sure he had faced down death plenty of times before: his adventures with uncle Scrooge, his exploits as Paperinik, his incidents in the navy, and even most of his S.H.U.S.H. career. But this was different, there was always a plan in place to see him and his allies through and while it had been his suggestion to improvise the raid against F.O.W.L., that was a decision born out of desperation. Neither him nor Kay knew what to expect once they got inside and there were so many things that could go wrong...</p><p>Donald shook off those thoughts, he shouldn’t be worrying. They weren’t going to fail, sure they were severely outnumbered and charging blind into enemy territory with hardly any equipment at all, but bad odds never stopped him before; they were going to succeed, they were going to bring down F.O.W.L., and then they were going to spend the rest of their lives together in marital bliss.</p><p>He knew they would.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>“Oh my god! Was it chili night in the cafeteria or something?! This place reeks!” Kay exclaimed as they waded through the knee deep muck.</p><p>After a straight mile of swimming underwater from the boat to the drainage pipe (it was a good thing Donald grabbed those wetsuits and waterproof bags back in Acapulco), the duo had made it into the sewer system which was thankfully free of any security features, which was strange considering the tunnels were large enough for an entire person to fit into with ample room to spare but Donald wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.</p><p>That being said he did have to agree with Kay, the smell left something to be desired. Regardless, the ex-S.H.U.S.H. agents had been walking for a good few minutes now with Donald letting Kay take the lead; neither of them were familiar with the sewer system and letting Donald do the guesswork on which paths they took was just asking for his bad luck to strike them down before they could even get to the surface.</p><p>As they got deeper in, taking various twists and turns into the labyrinthine sewer tunnels that lied directly under the F.O.W.L. base, Donald couldn’t shake the feelings of dread and anxiety that had formed back on the boat, he wanted to believe that they were going to succeed but at the same time he couldn’t help but doubt their chances.</p><p>That’s when something else occurred to him, something that he hadn’t even considered until now: what would happen to his family if he failed? F.O.W.L. had it out for uncle Scrooge and fully intended to get rid of the billionaire one way or another. Scrooge might have been smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies but if last year’s christmas party was any indication, F.O.W.L. was more than capable of getting to him and Donald might not be around to protect him next time.</p><p>‘What if they come for Della too?’ Donald thought to himself as his breathing started to become shallow and uneven. The thought of his sister getting hurt or worse, killed, by F.O.W.L. terrified him.</p><p>Before this train of thought could go any further, his head whipped to the side and a sharp stinging sensation came across his cheek; Kay had just slapped him across the face.</p><p>“What the- what was that for?!” Donald yelled.</p><p>“You were about to have a panic attack and now is not the time for that.” Kay snapped. “I know you’re worried about this whole mess but we’ve got a job to do and I need you to keep your head on straight.”</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“No buts!” Kay growled, interrupting Donald. “Stop doubting yourself Donald. Sure the chips are against the wall and there’s a lot that hangs in the balance here, but we’re the two best agents to ever work under S.H.U.S.H., we’ve brought in dozens of criminals and completed hundreds of missions. The criminal underworld lives in fear of our names! We’ve got this, you understand?!”</p><p>Donald looked at Kay for a moment before adopting a tired smile. “You’re right, you’re always right. We can do this!”</p><p>“That’s the spirit! Now come on, I think I found a way up.” Kay replied, shining her flashlight on a ladder leading up to the surface.</p><p>Donald nodded and followed Kay up said ladder, squinting his eyes at the bright light that shone through when she pushed the grate covering the sewer entrance open. The two of them found themselves in some sort of maintenance closet filled with various tools and cleaning supplies with a small lightbulb providing the only source of lumination in the room. Pushing the door open slightly, Kay and Donald took a peek outside to try and get a better gauge of where they were in the base; judging by the lines of lockers and pair of naked eggheads having a discussion, they both made the logical assumption they had stumbled into the staff shower area.</p><p>“Man, I thought when I got this assignment things would be so much more interesting!” Complained the male egghead</p><p>“What do you mean Don?” Asked the female egghead, brushing her hair.</p><p>“Well this is the biggest thing F.O.W.L. has ever done, it’s an orbital station! It’s like my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut is finally coming true!”</p><p>Seeing as the goons were too wrapped up in their conversation to pay attention to their surroundings, Donald and Kay gave each other a knowing nod and started shuffling across the floor as quietly as they could towards the eggheads.</p><p>“But I always get assigned to the boring jobs: help stock the food in the cafeteria, mop up the barracks, guard the imprisoned S.H.U.S.H. agents-”</p><p>Kay looked and Donald and mouthed ‘imprisoned S.H.U.S.H. agents?’, the former sailor motioned for her to stay focused on the task at hand.</p><p>“Ever since we took over S.H.U.S.H. everything’s gotten so calm and relaxed, it’s boring.”</p><p>“Hey come on Don.” the female egghead said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’re contributing to something greater here! Think of how great it’ll be when the station is finally in orbit and we can start stealing to our heart’s content.”</p><p>“I guess you’re right.” Don replied, failing to notice the S.H.U.S.H. agents standing right behind him and his friend. “I just wish something would happen.”</p><p>“Wish granted.” Donald whispered, right before he put the egghead in a chokehold with Kay mirroring his actions on the other one.</p><p>The birds struggled against them for a few moments, beating their fists against the agents’ limbs and kicking their feet, but eventually the eggheads fell unconscious and went limp.</p><p>“That went well, I’ll go check around and make sure we don’t have any more company. You make sure these two aren’t able to alert the rest of the base.” Kay said as she walked off.</p><p>Donald nodded and hefted the two agents over his shoulders. A quick search of the shower area produced a few towels that he repurposed into gags and restraints that were placed upon the eggheads, he then stuffed them into a pair of vacant lockers and closed it up tight. Those two weren’t going anywhere soon</p><p>That’s when Donald spotted their discarded uniforms out of the corner of their eyes, a mis-mash of sickly yellow and orange that made them look like a walking traffic sign. Even the beagle boys had better fashion sense than this.</p><p>‘Although’ Donald thought to himself as he held up the uniform. ‘This does look like my size and the other one might fit Kay too…’</p><p>Donald smiled as a wonderfully deceptive idea began to form in his head, before he knew it the duck was already putting on the suit.</p><p>“Alright looks like we’re all al- what are you doing?” Kay asked, clearly befuddled by the sight of her partner slipping into an egghead uniform.</p><p>“Just a bit of infiltration, I figured since all these eggheads look the same with their uniforms we could use these to blend right in.” Donald replied.</p><p>“Well they do look like they’d fit. But don’t you think it might be too obvious?” Kay asked</p><p>“Hey, if agent 47 could pull off something like this in Sapienza then so can we.”</p><p>“Come on, it can’t be that easy.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>“It’s that easy…” Kay remarked as they casually strolled through the F.O.W.L. launch site without so much as a second glance.</p><p>Their disguises worked flawlessly, or at least they appeared to, as the helmets covering their faces made them fit right in with all the other drones rushing around in identical costumes. They were practically invisible in these things.</p><p>This allowed them to finally get some much needed reconnaissance and get a feel for the layout of the base. It was about what they expected, a few concrete buildings with overgrowth climbing up them, guards milling about, truly nothing noticeable that they hadn’t already seen from Gizmo's photos.</p><p>They assumed that the large tower lying adjacent to the rocket had to be some kind of mission control center from which the rocket was controlled, perhaps they could sabotage the launch sequence altogether to prevent a takeoff. They just had to get over-</p><p>“HEY! STOP RIGHT THERE YOU TWO!”</p><p>Donald and Kay stopped dead in their tracks and looked behind them to see a rather angry looking egghead storming their way over to them.</p><p>“What do we do?” Kay murmured</p><p>“Act natural.” Donald replied.</p><p>“Don! Rosa! What the heck are you doing all the way out here?!” The egghead barked.</p><p>“Well we-”</p><p>“No, I don’t want to hear your excuses! Just get to the holding cells and guard the prisoners, like you’re supposed to be doing!” The masked bird pointed to a large building on the opposite side of the complex. “I don’t know how you lunk heads ever got assigned to such an important mission.”</p><p>Knowing full well that they had to play along to maintain their cover, Donald and Kay obeyed the egghead’s orders and started jogging over to the building housing the holding cells. Of course the minute they arrived and saw WHO was being held in the aforementioned cells, their jaws nearly unhinged in surprise.</p><p>Clearly ‘Don’ wasn’t making stuff up when he said that there were captured S.H.U.S.H. agents on the premises. The whole jail was chock full of them, just cell after cell of miserable agents that had been stripped of their titles and locked up like common criminals. There were plenty of familiar faces too: Agent Samson, Agent Fury, Agents Possible and Stoppable, and even-</p><p>“Mom?!” Kay exclaimed.</p><p>Agent 22 looked up from her spot on the cell bunk and shot Kay a look of confusion.</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>Kay pulled her helmet off, letting her raven locks spill out. “Mom! It’s me! It’s Kay!”</p><p>That got a reaction out of the brit, who all but leapt out of bed and rushed over to the cell door to ensure that she wasn’t hallucinating, her eyes the size of dinner plates that seemingly couldn’t believe what they were seeing.</p><p>“K-Kay? What the- where have you been?! how did you get here?!”</p><p>“We hid in one of your safe houses for the past few months.” Donald replied, pulling off his own helmet. “Once we found out about this space station plan, we traveled down in disguise and infiltrated the base.”</p><p>22 was practically beaming with pride at this point. “I must say I’m impressed, it must have taken a lot of effort to avoid capture for so long. As you can see the rest of us weren’t so lucky, F.O.W.L. hit us so hard and so fast that we barely had any time to react.”</p><p>“So is this all the remaining S.H.U.S.H. forces?” Asked Kay.</p><p>“No, just the ones that figured out F.O.W.L.’s takeover of S.H.U.S.H. before you did.” Agent 22 replied. “Please tell me you have some kind of plan to stop them.”</p><p>Donald and Kay stared at Agent 22 with awkward smiles. “Well, we’ve just been making it up as we go along. I’d say it’s worked pretty well so far.”</p><p>“Well I can’t necessarily argue with the results, you two have gotten further than the rest of us have.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Donald stated. “Now let’s get you guys out of those cages.”</p><p>“That might be easier said than done, the entire place is wired up to an electric lock system that requires a keycard to-” Agent 22 was stopped mid-sentence by a loud klaxxon followed by the cell doors slamming open one by one.</p><p>Donald held up a small piece of plastic with a cheeky smile. “You mean like this keycard?”</p><p>“Yes that will do.”</p><p>“Well I don’t know about the rest of you guys.” Agent Samson said, cracking his knuckles. “But I’m ready to strangle me some F.O.W.L. agents.”</p><p>The other agents sounded off in agreement, clearly ready to tear their captors limb from limb, only for agent 22 to silence them with a hand.</p><p>“Not yet, we need to figure out how to stop the rocket from taking off first before we deal with the forces on the ground.”</p><p>Kay rubbed her chin. “Actually, he might be onto something. F.O.W.L.’s probably let their guards down ever since they gained control of S.H.U.S.H. so they wouldn’t expect something like this to happen. We’ve got the numbers, if you guys can cause enough mayhem it might cause enough of a distraction for us to get up to the rocket and disable it entirely.”</p><p>“That seems a tad sloppy don’t you think?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, do you have a better idea?” Donald shot back with his hands on his hips.</p><p>“Alright you’ve got me there.” 22 replied. “But how exactly do you propose we get the attention of the entire base long enough for you two to get up there?”</p><p>“Easy, see we saw a building on the way over here with this big sign over it that said ‘armory’....” Kay began to explain.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>F.O.W.L. had been fully prepared for an all out assault on their jungle base, they had lined the perimeter with turrets, hidden traps, and dozens of highly trained guards; they could have held off an entire army coming at them from the outside of the base.</p><p>Unfortunately for F.O.W.L., while they had fortified their surroundings they hadn’t accounted for a threat that came from INSIDE the base itself. Such as several captured S.H.U.S.H. agents being freed from their cells and looting the entire armory, leaving most of the eggheads defenseless and the ones that were armed had been taken completely by surprise, causing them to break formation and scatter like rats.</p><p>Within minutes the entire base was thrown into chaos, S.H.U.S.H. may have been outnumbered but they were far stronger and more skilled than the eggheads manning the base and the F.O.W.L. forces were getting mowed down like grass. Stuff was blowing up, guys were getting thrown into other guys, it was total bedlam.</p><p>And cruising through it all with gleeful smiles on their faces was Donald and Kay K, who were headed straight for the rocket on a stolen jeep that someone had conveniently left the keys inside of.</p><p>It seems as though somebody must have realized what they were trying to do as some of the remaining F.O.W.L. forces were trying to set up a defensive perimeter around the ramp up to the rocket itself, not that it did them any good as Donald and Kay merely rammed straight through their shoddily made barricade.</p><p>“Almost there! We just need to get a little bit further-”</p><p>“THE ROCKET IS LAUNCHING IN. FIVE. MINUTES.” an automated voice droned from the intercoms.</p><p>Kay practically floored it at that point out of sheer urgency, accelerating the vehicle to breakneck speeds.</p><p>When they plowed straight through the bay doors of the rocket, which had begun to close as they approached, it was a wonder both of them managed to escape without any major injuries. Of course that wasn’t to say they made a clear entry as several eggheads had decided to simply cut and run by boarding the rocket, leaving their fellow foot soldiers to their fates; said eggheads were now surrounding both Kay K and Donald who had been flung from the totaled remains of the jeep when it smashed into the bay area.</p><p>But naturally, the numbers advantage didn’t mean much in the face of Donald and Kay’s incredible combat skills and it certainly didn’t help, for some strange reason, that the eggheads chose to attack the duo one by one instead of rushing them all at the same time.</p><p>“Hey Kay! Can I ask you something?!” Donald yelled, cold clocking an egghead across the face.</p><p>“Sure!” Kay shouted back, throwing another goon over her shoulder.</p><p>“What colors do you want for our wedding? I was thinking purple and blue!”</p><p>Kay put an egghead in a chokehold. “Are you kidding me?! You wanna talk about this right now?!”</p><p>“Yes I do!” Donald landed a devastating roundhouse onto another mook’s jaw. “I still wanna marry you and I fully intend to when this is over!”</p><p>Donald got a certain satisfaction out of seeing Kay blush right as she slammed two eggheads together. “Look, we can talk about this later! I appreciate the enthusiasm, heck it’s one of the reasons I love you but-”</p><p>Kay flung an egghead towards Donald who swiftly clotheslined the poor jerk. “-We need to focus on the matter at hand, stopping F.O.W.L.!”</p><p>“Okay, okay.” Donald replied, punching out the last F.O.W.L. agent. “But if you had to pick a place where would-”</p><p>“The beach, preferably one in brazil.” Kay instantly replied, kissing Donald on the cheek. “Now let’s get moving!”</p><p>“I love you so much right now!”</p><p>After dealing with the initial rush of eggheads, who were now piled up around the rocket’s storage area, the duo started fighting their way up the rocket. Punching, kicking, and even shooting their way through the mooks that thought they had a chance to take them down; all the while admiring each other in action. If there was one thing that they loved to do together, it was fighting side by side: they functioned as a unit, their movements perfectly in sync with one another to create an unstoppable team that nobody could beat, this was their tango and their enemies’ faces was their dance floor.</p><p>Eventually, after knocking out what felt like hundreds of goons, Donald and Kay reached the higher levels of the rocket and found themselves on a series of catwalks above another storage area; and who was standing on the other end of the room? The very person responsible for this whole mess: John D Rockerduck, flanked by his manservant Jeeves.</p><p>“What do you mean we’ve lost seventy percent of our agents?! How in the world are you all losing to a small squad of-” Rockerduck froze when he noticed the two S.H.U.S.H. agents standing on the catwalk opposite to him. “Oh you have got to be kidding me, not you! Not now!”</p><p>“Hands up Rockerduck!” Donald exclaimed as he and Kay both drew their weapons “Your men have scattered, your base has been compromised, and We’ve got you outmatched! It’s over.”</p><p>“It is not over! Not until I say it is!” Screamed the robber baron. “Jeeves, handle this!”</p><p>Rockerduck, in the cowardly fashion he was known for, quickly retreated up a ladder to the higher levels of the rocket while someone else did all of his fighting for him.</p><p>The absolute unit of a man slowly started walking across the catwalk towards the agent, a stone faced expression maintained during his approach. Naturally, when faced with such an opponent, Donald did the only reasonable thing and fired a few tranquilizer rounds into him.</p><p>That only seemed to make him angry.</p><p>Jeeves quickened his pace and closed the distance between him and the agents, forcing them into hand to hand combat where they soon realized that they were the ones who were outmatched.</p><p>Two against one didn’t mean anything when your opponent was sturdy enough to tank every hit you could dish out without so much as flinching. They threw every ounce of strength they had at Jeeves and none of it made a difference, the only reason they lasted as long as they did because a small and quick target was difficult to hit, especially for a fighter as slow as Jeeves.</p><p>Unfortunately, neither of them could dance around his swings forever. Donald ended up making one wrong step, which Jeeves capitalized on by slamming a massive fist into the small duck’s frame, sending him flying into the handrail and denting it with a loud bang and a crunch that could be anything but good.</p><p>The duck sank to his knees, hacking and wheezing from the sheer force of the blow, trying to regain the wind that had just been knocked out of him. It wasn’t until Kay let out a distressed cry that he finally looked up and saw that Jeeves had pinned her down and was now trying to step on her, the poor girl was just barely holding back his foot with all four of her limbs and was clearly in trouble.</p><p>“Donald.” Kay whimpered. “Help me…”</p><p>That’s when Donald felt it, the infamous Mcduck rage that he hadn’t felt in a long time; it greeted him like a childhood friend and while normally he would trust his S.H.U.S.H. training and ignore it, he was beyond caring at this point. The love of his life was in danger of being crushed and the thought of it sent his anger through the roof.</p><p>Pulling himself back to his feet, Donald let out a battle cry and shot towards the goliath like a raging cannonball. “GET OFF OF HER YOU PALOOKA!!!!”</p><p>The impact was fast and hard; taking Jeeves completely off guard, who actually ended up stumbling back from the sheer force of the blow with a look of shock on his face as Donald started pummeling him as much as he could, finally doing some damage to the massive dog. But with a wrathful duck covering his field of vision, Jeeves didn’t realize how close he was to the edge of the catwalk until he backed into the handrail and accidentally pitched both himself and Donald over it; sending the two men plummeting to the levels below.</p><p>Thankfully for Donald, he landed on top of Jeeves when they hit the floor and the escort broke his fall, sparing him any major injuries.</p><p>“Donald! Donald!” Screamed Kay from the upper level. “Are you alright?!”</p><p>“I’m fine!” Replied the male agent, right as he noticed that Jeeves was getting back up. “Listen, I’ll keep the big guy occupied! You get Rockerduck!”</p><p>“But Donald-”</p><p>“Finish the mission Kay!!!” Donald barked. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got this!”</p><p>The raven haired duck looked around in uncertainty for a few moments before nodding and heading up the same ladder that Rockerduck had, leaving Donald all alone with Jeeves.</p><p>Donald cracked his knuckles. “Alright pal, show me what you’ve got.”</p><p>The dog rose from his spot on the floor, an expression of sheer rage upon his face that quickly gave way to pain as he doubled over and let out a grunt. It seemed as though even he wasn’t tough enough to get away from a fall like that unscathed; if Donald had to take a wild guess, he’d say the manservant was now sporting a few broken ribs.</p><p>“Aw, did you hurt yourself? Don’t worry, I can ease the pain.”</p><p>The two men charged towards each other and started trading blows. With Jeeves’ handicap and rage flowing through Donald’s veins, the playing field had been leveled and they were now fighting on equal terms. The S.H.U.S.H. agent was focusing most of his hits on the F.O.W.L. agent’s midsection, cracks and wheezes emanating from the titan with every punch and kick that worsened his injuries.</p><p>Soon Jeeves began fed up with this treatment and lunged forward with an almost animalistic growth and grabbed Donald’s head in his massive hand, lifting the duck up and flinging him like a baseball across the room. Poor Donald ended up smashing head first into a pile of crates and shattered the wood into thousands of tiny pieces.</p><p>The duck tried to get back up but his vision was blurry and the room was spinning far too fast, the only thing that registered was that Jeeves was slowly coming towards him with the intent to kill; he needed to come up with a plan and quick, before he wound up as a red stain on the floor.</p><p>Donald shook his head, trying to clear out some of the cobwebs, and when his vision finally cleared he realized that several hand grenades were surrounding him. He must have smashed into a munitions crate.</p><p>With Jeeves getting ever closer and his options all but exhausted, Donald decided to take a chance and just hope that his luck shone through for once in his life. The S.H.U.S.H. agent picked up one of the grenades and, in a single fluid motion, pulled the pin and lobbed it at the massive butler.</p><p>“Here! Catch!” Donald cackled.</p><p>Jeeves' eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he saw the explosive device streaking towards him, comically juggling it like a hot potato before it went off right in his hands and sent the brute flying back where he landed with an audible thump. The bodyguard attempted to get back on his feet for a third time but that grenade proved to be the final nail in the coffin as he finally collapsed and fell into unconsciousness.</p><p>Donald approached Jeeves and after checking to make sure he was still alive, his eyes started to sparkle. “I won? I WON! I mean, of course I won!”</p><p>His little victory celebration was short lived however, as the entire rocket started to shake and Donald quickly realized that it had started to take off with him and Kay still inside of it!</p><p>Knowing that she probably could use an extra set of hands, Donald started making his way up to the top of the rocket; if it was taking off there was no doubt in his mind that Rockerduck had reached the cockpit and Kay couldn’t be too far behind. He was hurting all over from his fight with Jeeves but he didn’t have time to rest. At least Kay had managed to deal with the remaining eggheads when pursuing Rockerduck to the upper levels.</p><p>Well...all but one.</p><p>Donald was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the cockpit of the rocket, every part of his body was now screaming in agony but he powered through it partly out of love for Kay and partly out of a sense of duty.</p><p>‘Come on, I’m so close! We can win this, just a few more steps-’ Donald’s thought process was abruptly interrupted by a F.O.W.L. agent seemingly materializing out of thin air and tackling him into some kind of high tech closet. The goon pinning the duck against a console covered in buttons and switches.</p><p>“No! Get out of my way!” Donald yelled, reeling back and headbutting the egghead with enough force to completely shatter the visor on his helmet.</p><p>The egghead yelped in pain and staggered back, clutching his now bleeding eyes. Donald let out a snort and pushed himself up against the console, barely registering the beep that came from it when his hand activated a big red button smack dab in the middle of it.</p><p>He ran forward to jump on top of the wounded egghead, only to slam face first into a door that suddenly closed in front of him.</p><p>Donald reeled back in pain. “Ouch! What the- oh no.”</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald realized he wasn’t in a high tech closet. He was in an escape pod and he had just <b>activated it</b>.</p><p>“No, no, NO!” Donald frantically began mashing buttons and switches on the console before him, trying anything and everything to stop the pod from shooting out from the side of the ship. But of course Donald could never be so lucky, instead he only managed to speed up the process and the pod shot out of the side of the rocket like a cannonball.</p><p>Donald was flung around the pod as it fell to earth, tumbling around in the small compartment and slamming against its walls. If that parachute didn’t deploy he was fairly certain that metal could have been a coffin for him, thankfully it did and delivered him safely to the ground; Although not unharmed as he was now covered head to toe in scrapes and bruises, at least he could still stand.</p><p>Kicking open the door to the pod, Donald stumbled out and tried to get a heading on where he landed while also trying to keep his lunch down. Much to his surprise, he had actually managed to land right in the center of the F.O.W.L. base and by the looks of it the tide had completely been turned against the enemy; not that it mattered when the rocket was already disappearing into the sky.</p><p>“Donald? Donald are you there? Do you copy?”</p><p>Donald looked down and realized that his communication watch had crackled to life with Kay on the other end, good that meant she was still alive.</p><p>“Yeah, I copy. I’m sorry Kay, it looks like Rockerduck succeeded.” Donald said in a forlorn tone.</p><p>“No he hasn’t, I’m still on the rocket!” Kay exclaimed. “In fact I’m in the cockpit right now!”</p><p>Donald did a double take. “What?! You mean you’re steering it?!”</p><p>“Yeah, I managed to corner Rockerduck in the cockpit and beat him down. He got in a few lucky shots but I’m still kicking.” the agent replied.</p><p>“That’s great! So you can stop the rocket?”</p><p>Kay was silent on the other end of the comm line for a few moments before she gave her reply. “Well...no. Once it’s taken off there’s nothing I can do to safely land it, however I might be able to keep it from getting into orbit another way.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes widened at the obvious implication of her statement. “Kay no, you can’t!”</p><p>“It’s the only way Donald! If I don’t crash this rocket into the dirt F.O.W.L. will win and I won’t let that happen!” Kay screamed.</p><p>“But you’ll die!”</p><p>“Donald, when I signed up for S.H.U.S.H. I knew perfectly well that there might come a day where I’d have to sacrifice my life for the greater good and that day is today.” Kay replied. “I’m sorry, but this is my last hurrah.”</p><p>“Kay, no please!” Donald begged, sinking to his knees. “I can’t lose you, I love you!”</p><p>“I love you too Donald, goodbye and tell mom I love her.”</p><p>On that note the comm line went dead and Donald was forced to watch in horror as the rocket’s trajectory slowly tipped lower and lower until it was streaking towards the ground and disappeared over the mountains, a distant explosion sounding off followed by a plume of black smoke rising up from the crash site.</p><p>Donald just sat there in disbelief, still not being able to fully grasp what had just happened, his face frozen in shock.</p><p>She….She was gone. Kay was gone, he had just lost the love of his life forever and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. He clutched his chest, suddenly finding it incredibly hard to breathe.</p><p>It was just like losing mom and dad all over again, only this somehow felt worse.</p><p>Donald was so wrapped up in his heartbreak that he didn’t even notice agent 22 coming up behind him.</p><p>“Good news! I managed to get into F.O.W.L.'s central computer and send enough evidence to various government agencies to not only reveal F.O.W.L.’s infiltration but I also managed to clear your names! Reinforcements should be arriving soon to...is something wrong?”</p><p>Donald said nothing, he didn’t even acknowledge the woman’s presence. He just kept a thousand yard stare focused upon the horizon where the rocket had crashed.</p><p>Agent 22 suddenly realized that a certain agent seemed to be absent. “Double Duck, where’s Kay?”</p><p>Donald still remained silent.</p><p>“Donald, where is my daughter?” 22 repeated, this time with a bit more force.</p><p>Donald slowly turned around to face her and the dead look in his eyes was the only answer she needed. The agent’s head snapped up to the black smoke pilliar rising from the mountains as the realization hit her, a look that mirrored Donald’s own expression soon grew onto her face.</p><p>“No...no not her, not like this.”</p><p>They had succeeded, F.O.W.L. was defeated and the world was saved. But that victory was by no means worth what they had to give up for it.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
</div><p>There wasn’t a dry eye in the room after a story like that.</p><p>“Wow, a heroic sacrifice. What a way to go out…” Dewey remarked.</p><p>“Poor uncle Donald, losing his girlfriend like that.” Louie added. “Well at least we know Kay isn’t your mom Webby.”</p><p>Webby looked over at Louie. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Do the math, she died like twelve years ago and never mentioned having eggs beforehand. There’s no way she could be your mother.”</p><p>“He does have a point.” Huey added as he closed the book. “If she died back then there’s no chance of her being your mother Webby, it’s just not possible.”</p><p>“I know.” Webby sighed. “I just really thought I’d have a chance at finding out who my parents were and now I’m all the way back at square one again; with square one being me having no leads on my parents.”</p><p>“Hey don’t be like that. So what if you don’t know who your parents are right now, that just means we’ve got another mystery to solve together.” Dewey said, placing a hand on his adopted sister’s shoulder.</p><p>“Thanks Dewey.”</p><p>Huey let out a yawn. “Well seeing as we’ve finished up uncle Donald’s S.H.U.S.H. adventures can I please go back to sleep now?”</p><p>“Oh, right. Sorry.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and that concludes the adventures of Double Duck and Kay. You would not believe how long I've been waiting to write this whole chapter, it was one of the first I had planned out right from the beginning; to anyone who guessed that Kay would sacrifice her life to stop F.O.W.L., you win a cookie.</p><p>I did consider splitting this chapter into two but then I thought I might as well cap this arc off with a mega chapter, a fitting end I suppose.</p><p>Anyways, I'll be going on a short hiatus not because I've lost interest in the story but because I need to binge watch the legend of the three caballeros in order to ensure I do their arc justice. That and college courses I desperately need to complete.</p><p>I will warn you right now, Donald does not cope well with the loss of Kay and he's gonna go to a VERY dark place in the next chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. rock bottom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Donald doesn't cope with loss well....</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Webby knocked on the door of the Saberwing household, rocking back and forth on her feet as she awaited an answer. The triplets were out on a fishing trip with their uncle Donald and had given her full permission to do a bit more reading into the biography while they were gone, as long as she filled them in when they got back. To which Webby decided to seize the opportunity to have a bit of a platonic study date with Violet.</p><p>Out of her entire social circle, Webby considered Violet to be the most ‘normal’ out of them all (granted that wasn’t saying a lot but still) and as such her home certainly reflected that. It was a small two story house in the suburbs of Duckburg whose most striking feature was the deep purple paint job adorning the house, apart from that it was practically identical to the dozens of cookie cutter houses that lined the block with only a few bits of decor lending it any sort of individualism. One would never guess that this was the home of a close personal friend of the Mcduck family as well as one of Duckburg’s most intelligent kids.</p><p>And that’s not an exaggeration, Violet won the Duckburg quizbowl back when she was nine and has kept a win streak up ever since.</p><p>Before Webby could hyper-examine her friend’s house any further, the front door gently opened and revealed a smiling Indy Saberwing standing behind it.</p><p>“Oh hello Webby! Your grandmother told us you were coming by today!” The hummingbird exclaimed, waving the girl in.</p><p>“Yep, just wanted to do a bit of a one on one meeting with Violet to talk about this new book we’ve been reading.”</p><p>“Well she’s waiting upstairs in her room, you two play safe and please don’t summon another poltergeist. Our neighbors are still recovering from last time.”</p><p>“We won’t!” exclaimed Webby, hiking up the stairs to Violet’s room.</p><p>The brainiac's room was about what you’d expect: a few academic trophies here, a few science related posters there, a bookshelf against one of the walls, ect. What seemed a tad out of place however was the duck plushie sitting on top of the bed, especially since said plushie bared a striking resemblance to a certain red hatted junior woodchuck that they were familiar with, but that wasn’t important at the moment; she had come over to talk about Donald Duck’s secret history, not her bestie’s first crush.</p><p>Looking up from her notebook, Violet smiled at the sight of her friend.</p><p>“Ah, greetings Webby. I take it you’ll want to pick up where we left off last time?”</p><p>Webby nodded as she pulled out the old journal, flipping to the entry made shortly after Kay K’s death.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>The fallout from the incident at F.O.W.L.’s jungle outpost was massive and far reaching. From the data agent 22 was able to send out from F.O.W.L.’s personal network, she managed to incriminate several high ranking government officials across various agencies as F.O.W.L. moles and exposing the high levels of corruption that had taken route. This in turn led to mass arrests of all those involved, just hundreds of F.O.W.L. agents being yanked out of their desks and taken into custody as their cover fell through, Alexander Puffin amongst them. News reporters had a field day with that, all of them blaring about how a major terrorist group managed to infiltrate various government agencies only to be stopped by a pair of heroic individuals that still maintained their loyalty.</p><p>Said individuals? Kay K and Donald Duck, their names had been cleared when F.O.W.L.’s deception was exposed and they were hailed as heroes who saved the world rather than criminals; of course that didn’t mean much to the former but at least her death wouldn’t be in vain. Naturally they couldn’t be exposed as secret agents without revealing S.H.U.S.H. to the world so the remaining higher ups within the agency decided to run with a vigilante cover story: Donald and Kay K were a couple of everymen who got caught up in the crossfire of a terrorist plot and using nothing but their wits and a cache of stolen F.O.W.L. equipment, they managed to bring down the entire organization single handedly. Sure it sounded like something out of a dumb action movie but the public accepted it without question, and that’s what really mattered.</p><p>Having so many of their own incarcerated combined with the destruction of their space station meant that F.O.W.L. had all but been wiped out; those that weren’t captured went into hiding, often disappearing into the criminal underworld while the heat died down but there were hardly enough of them left to pose a major threat, at least not for another decade. It would be a long time before F.O.W.L. would rear its ugly head again.</p><p>However it wasn’t all good news, a week after the incident at the jungle outpost J. Gander Hooter finally succumbed to his illness and died in hospital. With his death there came the matter of who his successor would be, obviously with Hooter dead and Puffin in jail S.H.U.S.H. was a ship without a captain, luckily their former director had thought ahead and took care of the matter before his death. In his last will and testament, J. Gander Hooter left all of his remaining assets including his position at S.H.U.S.H. to his most trusted confidant: Agent 22. She was hesitant on taking the position at first, especially considering she was grieving over the death of her daughter, but eventually the woman caved if for no other reason than to honor her associate’s final wish.</p><p>It took the agency about two months to sort through all the F.O.W.L. agents they had captured and restructured S.H.U.S.H. so that such a takeover would never occur again. Once everything had calmed down and business as usual resumed, agent 22 realized that they had somehow overlooked something very important during that period: Double Duck was MIA, vanished without a trace.</p><p>A bit of digging revealed that on the fateful day of Kay K’s death, shortly after reinforcements arrived, Double Duck had gotten on a motorcycle and drove straight out of the compound into the jungles of south america; never to be seen again.</p><p>They had tried to find him, sending out dozens of agents to do so, but every effort felt flat as the trail had gone cold long ago.</p><p>It certainly didn’t help that Donald didn’t WANT to be found.</p><p>The death of Kay left Donald completely crushed, here he was once again having to lose someone he loved in a tragic accident. The poor duck responded to the pain the only way he knew how: with anger. He lashed out and blamed everyone for her death: he blamed F.O.W.L. for building that rocket and trying to wipe them out, he blamed S.H.U.S.H. for turning their backs on them when they needed help, but most of all Donald blamed….himself.</p><p>It just wasn’t fair. He was the duck that always got stuck with all the bad luck….so why was he still alive? He should have been the one to go down in that rocket, not Kay, she should have been the one to live to tell the tale. Maybe if he had fought harder, if he had done something differently, if he had just ran away with her when he had the chance...maybe then she’d still be alive. But no, fate didn’t want him to be happy.</p><p>As far as Donald was concerned, he was done with the secret agent life forever, in fact he was done with adventuring all together. He had given it his all to protect the world and what was his reward? To have the love of his life ripped away from him in an instant. So he walked away from the world of spies and never looked back, S.H.U.S.H. be darned.</p><p>He didn’t want anything to do with S.H.U.S.H. but he didn’t want to go home either, apart from the obvious problem of it being the first place the agency would go looking for him he didn’t want to face his family in his current state, he just wanted to be alone right now. The last thing he wanted was to burden Scrooge and Della with his grief like last time, he was an adult now, he could take care of himself.</p><p>With his only two options out of the question, Donald simply went wherever the roads took him. He drifted from town to town across South America, picking up jobs under assumed names to keep food in his belly and a roof over his head. Never staying in one place for too long out of paranoia that S.H.U.S.H. was trying to track him down, which they were.</p><p>Some Days the pain was a bit too much for him to bear, nightmares about that day waking him up in the middle of the night and feelings of guilt crushing him, and Donald turned to the bottle to cope. What started off as a few beers here and there to numb the emotional pain quickly snowballed into him spending most of his nights at the bottom of a glass; whiskey, tequila, vodka, rum, and gin, he downed practically anything he could get his hands on. He knew that it wasn’t healthy for him but he was too focused on trying to drown his sorrows to care.</p><p>That was Donald’s meager existence for a while, jumping from place to place while making out with a bottle of liquor whenever he had the chance. He did ponder just letting himself waste away and put an end to it all, but his own stubborn nature kept him from doing so; as much as it hurt he wasn’t about to just give up and die, that’s not what Kay would have wanted. So he just kept carrying on, slowly but surely moving north from South to Central America and eventually North America where he stumbled into a city called New Quackmore; buying a house with what little money he had left from his time at S.H.U.S.H. (they paid their agents quite well) that hadn’t been funneled into his drinking habit after he had grown tired of running and assuming the agency had long since given up their search.</p><p>What he did not realize at the time was that in that town is where he would enter a whole new chapter of his life, one where he would be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of adventure with the help of two men who would become his very best friends.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>“And stay out!” the bouncer shouted, throwing Donald to the curb and slamming the door behind him.</p><p>Donald quickly scrambled back to his feet in a drunken stupor and flung an empty beer can at the door where it impacted with a pitiful clank. “Oh yeah?! Well your service is terrible anyways!”</p><p>The duck grit his teeth and started walking through the dark streets of New Quackmore, still buzzed from the five vodka martinis he had drunk before managing to get banned from the Ink &amp; Paint Club. It wasn’t even his fault, it was that other black feathered duck’s; he was the one to challenge Donald to a piano contest, he was the one to insult his speech impediment, sure he might have thrown the first punch after that remark but could you really blame him? He didn’t expect the entire bar to break out into a bare knuckled brawl after he knocked out the duck with one punch.</p><p>What kind of stupid name was Daffy Duck anyways?</p><p>He supposed it didn’t matter much now, what’s done is done and there wasn’t much he could do to change the past at this point; besides, it wouldn’t be the first time his temper got him into hot water. When it wasn’t his bad luck, it was his temper that did him in which got him booted from bars and fired from jobs from here to Buenos Aires. But everytime it happened he didn’t throw a fit, at least not a big one, instead he just dusted himself off and moved on; he was used to the world constantly beating him down by this point.</p><p>With a quick glance at his watch revealing that it was a little past midnight, Donald figured that he might as well head home and prepare for the inevitable hangover that he’d have to deal with the next morning. The duck drunkenly stumbling his way there through silent streets, in the direction of New Quackmore’s suburban area.</p><p>As far as cities to live in went, New Quackmore wasn’t a half bad choice. Sure it’s proximity to Duckburg and St Canard made him more than a little uncomfortable and it wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis with most of the city being built around the ‘prestigious’ New Quackmore institute (bunch of stuck up jerks over there if you asked Donald), but there was enough to keep Donald occupied in terms of work and entertainment not to mention it being a college town allowed him to find some housing for cheap. Above all else however, it was quiet and uneventful which is just the way Donald liked it; no crazy terrorist plots or mystical adventures, just normal everyday life.</p><p>Donald was broken out of his thoughts when the strong smell of smoke suddenly hit him like a firm slap to the face, waking him up real quick.</p><p>When he looked up and saw a cloud of smoke coming up from a block or two away, around the street he lived on, Donald immediately assumed the worst and started to rush home.</p><p>‘No, no, please no…’ Donald internally groaned.</p><p>Much to his displeasure, Donald rounded the corner to find that his house had in fact been engulfed in flame and the entire neighborhood had apparently gathered to watch the spectacle.</p><p>“Move it! Outta my way!” Donald yelled as he shoved his way to the front of the crowd only to be stopped by a dalmatian in a fireman’s uniform.</p><p>“Hold it pal, I can’t let you any further.” The dog said, holding an arm in front of Donald.</p><p>“But it’s- it was my house!”</p><p>“All the same sir, I can’t-”</p><p>“Aw just let him through simmons.” the fire chief said “we’re pretty much done here, might as well tell him what happened.”</p><p>Donald walked up the smoldering remains that were formerly his suburban home and let out a tired groan. “No. Don’t tell me; I left the oven on.”</p><p>“Close, it was actually your kettle.” The firefighter replied, handing Donald a soot stained tea kettle.</p><p>The Duck looked down at the scorched metal with a blank expression for a few moments before his face went red, his breathing becoming fast and shallow as his beak curled into an almost animalistic growl, you could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. The neighbors who had come to watch the fire quickly took a step back, very familiar with Donald Duck’s outbursts.</p><p>Just as it looked like Donald was about to erupt with anger, the duck completely deflated with an audible sigh and pitfully tossed the kettle to his side.</p><p>“Oh forget it. What’s the point?” Donald grumbled, taking a seat on the curb.</p><p>Seeing as the show was over, both the neighbors and the firefighters dispersed and left Donald all alone in the ruins of his home. The duck letting out a noise that sounded like a mix between a sob and a delirious laugh.</p><p>“Great. So I’m half drunk and my entire house burned down with all my stuff in it, fantastic! How could tonight get any better?!” Donald yelled, throwing his arms out only to wince in pain when he ended up smacking the wooden post holding his mailbox up.</p><p>The burned wood gave way from the blow and the mailbox came tumbling down, a single letter fluttering out to Donald’s feet.</p><p>The duck raised an eyebrow in surprise at the sight of the envelope, the well written calligraphy spelling out the address was a far cry from the typed out letters he received from the utility companies and bill collectors. Picking up the letter and tearing it open, Donald began to read the note inside.</p><p>“Dear Mr.Duck, recently your great grandfather Clinton Coot has died from natural causes. In his last will and testament he explicitly left you a sizable inheritance: a property located at 122 and 1/8th Sheldgoose square. The will shall be gone into more detail at noon on June 9th of this year, we sincerely hope you-” Donald skimmed the rest of the letter, placing particular focus on the word ‘inheritance’.</p><p>He couldn’t believe it! Good things like this never happened to him but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, if he inherited a property from his great grandfather then that meant he’d have a brand new roof over his head by tomorrow! Sure he’d probably have to find a place to sleep in the meantime but it wouldn’t be the first time he spent a night on the streets.</p><p>“Oh boy oh boy, maybe today isn’t so bad after all. I’d better pack my things!” Exclaimed Donald with a smile on his face.</p><p>Thankfully, he hadn’t lost everything in the fire. A few outfits, photographs, and other items had managed to survive the blaze; all of it fitting inside a single suitcase. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing after all, now he just had to find a nice warm place to spend the night before heading off to the will reading the next morning.</p><p>Things were really starting to look up for him.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>Violet paused when she saw the somewhat forlorn expression on her companion’s face.</p><p>“Something’s bothering you.”</p><p>“It’s nothing, really. We can keep going.” Webby lied.</p><p>Violet sighed. “Webby, you and I both know that lying has never been your strong suit.”</p><p>“I’m sorry it’s just, well...I was really hoping Kay was my mom; it would have given me some closure but at the same time I’m fine with the fact that she’s not…”</p><p>“Care to explain further?” Asked the hummingbird.</p><p>Webby nodded and did just that, going into a long ramble about all of the conflicting feelings she had been going through upon discovering that Kay K wasn’t her mother after all as well as the impact her death had upon Donald.</p><p>Unfortunately for the two of them, they had gotten so wrapped up in their conversation that they didn’t notice a certain teenage duck slowly creeping up towards the door.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I HAVE A TV TROPES PAGE NOW!!!</p><p>https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheSecretBiographyOfDonaldDuck</p><p>I have officially made it as a fanfic writer! </p><p>in other news, the next chapter will OFFICALLY begin the adventures of the three caballeros and there will be a few big changes from canon for obvious reasons; you'll see what I mean.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. the legend of the three caballeros</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>okay here it is: THE LEGEND OF THE THREE CABALLEROS!</p><p>I would just like to apologize in advance to any spanish and/or portugese speakers that have been following my fic, I don't speak a lick of either language so I'm gonna be relying HEAVILY on google translate to write some of Panchito and José's dialogue so there's a good chance I'm gonna butcher it to a degree.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>If there’s one thing Lena really enjoyed about being a living creature instead of a shadow of her aunt, it had to be the ability to enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee. The young sorceress had always enjoyed the smell of coffee when she was still living on the streets, the smells wafting out of the cafes that dotted every street corner of Duckburg; but she didn’t realize she had a taste for the drink until after being adopted into the Saberwing family, bless those wonderful people, and she managed to convince her new dads to let her try it.</p><p>Ever since then she’s been drinking it on an almost regular basis, always pure black with no cream or sugar, the strong taste suiting her quite well. It was a shame she couldn’t share this pleasure with her friends but she learned the hard way why you shouldn’t give someone like Webby (or the triplets for that matter) a highly caffeinated beverage, to this day she wasn’t sure how Huey managed to crawl around on the ceiling like that but she digressed.</p><p>The older girl took another sip as she slowly walked down the hall to greet her adopted sister and ask what her plans were for the rest of the day, only to realize that there was a second figure in her room with the hummingbird and they were having a rather animated conversation. Once she managed to get closer she realized that it was Webby of all people, which was rather strange considering they usually met up at Mcduck manor when they hung out instead of their house and Violet didn’t mention Webby coming over; her curiosity getting the better of her, Lena slid up to the door to eavesdrop on their conversation.</p><p>“So you’re okay with all of this?” Asked Violet, handing Webby a bottle of water.</p><p>“Well, sorta.” Webby replied, fidgeting in her seat “I’m really disappointed that Kay wasn’t my mom and that I still don’t know who my real parents were, but at the same time I’m glad since it means that my mom and dad might still be alive, out there somewhere.”</p><p>Lena stopped mid stride, so suddenly that she was barely able to keep her drink from spilling out onto the floor, that was far from what she expected them to be talking about.</p><p>Although now that she thought about it, she wondered why nobody had ever brought it up. It had always been Webby and her grandmother, never her mom and dad; she had to have parents right? Everyone did.</p><p>‘Well I don’t, but I’m a former shadow.’ Lena internally remarked. ‘Still, I figured that somebody would have asked where pink’s parents were at some point…’</p><p>“I suppose, in any case do you want to continue our reading?” Violet remarked.</p><p>‘Wait reading? What reading?’</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>Lena peered around the corner to try and get a better look at the scene before her, her adoptive sister and her bestie were sitting on the former’s bed while the latter flipped open what looked like an old leather journal. She had to squint a bit to read it, but she was able to make out the title:</p><p>
  <b>‘The secret biography of Donald F. Duck.’</b>
</p><p>That only raised more questions, namely why that old sailor even had a biography at all.</p><p>Lena decided to find out for herself and took a seat next to the doorway, just out of the girls’ field of vision and listened in as Violet started to read the passages out loud.</p>
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  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Donald couldn’t help but look around in awe at the New Quackmore institute campus, all the grand and shining structures that surrounded him as he walked along the sidewalks. As much as he loathed most of the people running this place, he had to admit that they definitely knew good architecture.</p><p>Towering buildings, well trimmed gardens, and well dressed intellectuals everywhere you looked. Frankly Donald felt a bit underdressed in his old sailor uniform but he didn’t care, nothing could ruin his good mood today.</p><p>“Let’s see, 122 aaand 1/8th Sheldgoose square!” Donald exclaimed, looking up from the letter with an eager smile on his face that quickly fell away when he saw just what his inheritance was.</p><p>Unlike the rest of the campus, the structure that stood before him was neither grand nor beautiful. It was a run down old cabana that looked like it would collapse if a strong gust of wind blew through, Donald quickly dispelled those thoughts; beggars couldn’t be choosers and he needed a new place to live.</p><p>“Well…” Donald remarked, approaching the shack. “It’s not much, but it’s all mine.”</p><p>A large shadow suddenly fell over Donald, causing him to freeze in place. “Mr.Duck I presume?”</p><p>Donald turned around and came face to face with a well dressed female dog that quite literally towered over him.</p><p>“Yeah? Who’s asking?”</p><p>“I am the executor of your great grandfather’s estate, will the others be joining us?” the woman explained in a rather blunt tone.</p><p>Donald looked back at her in confusion. “Others? What do you mean o-”</p><p>The sailor was interrupted mid-sentence by a greyhound bus pulling up in front of the cabana with a loud honk, it’s door flying open as a green parrot in a tan suit jacket with a matching hat and black bow tie came tumbling out.</p><p>The parrot quickly regained his footing and dusted himself off with a whimsical sigh, catching the umbrella that was thrown at him. “Thank you my friend! And do not worry, I promise to pay you back at my earliest convenience.”</p><p>“Bye José!” several women aboard the bus chimed as it pulled away, one of them letting out a rather desperate sounding ‘I LOVE YOU!’ as the vehicle did so.</p><p>“Tchau Meninas!” José sounded off in reply before turning on his heel to face Donald and the executor. “José Carioca at your service.”</p><p>Donald rolled his eyes when the parrot walked over and kissed the lady’s hand, quickly getting between the two and jabbing a finger against José’s beak. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>“I am here to claim my inheritance.” José replied, calmly pulling Donald’s finger away from his beak. “Which is most fortuitous as my personal finances expired roughly...twenty miles ago.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>José put an arm around Donald’s shoulder “but do not worry for me my friend, for what is money when fortune has smiled upon the two of us.”</p><p>“Two of us?!” Donald asked incredulously, roughly shoving the parrot away from him.</p><p>“Actually, there’s three.” The large dog added.</p><p>“THREE?!” Donald shouted.</p><p>That’s when the trio heard it, a loud yahoo that came from seemingly nowhere until they turned their gazes to the sky and saw what looked like the silhouette of a man that was rapidly approaching the ground.</p><p>Both José and Donald winced when he slammed right into the ground in front of them, his parachute popping out shortly after the impact. Although it seemed to have little effect on the man as he quickly popped back up like a spring loaded jack in the box and threw the cloth off of him, revealing a bright red rooster with a short bolero jacket, red charro pants, a belt with holsters, and a massive sombrero to complete the look.</p><p>“Wow! That tour guide was right! It is more of a rush to wait until <b>after</b> you land to open the parachute!” The rooster exclaimed before rushing right over to the other two birds and bringing them into an overly-enthusiastic handshake, so much so that Donald felt he had nearly dislocated his arm. “Hola amigos! Yo Soy Panchito Romero Miguel Francisco Quintero González the third, but my friends call me Panchito. You guys get an inheritance too?”</p><p>“Who are these guys?!” Donald asked the executor</p><p>“I already told you.” Panchito interjected. “Panchito Romero Miguel Francisco Quintero González the third”</p><p>“But your friends call you Panchtito.” Said José</p><p>Panchito chuckled and pointed a thumb at the parrot. “See? This guy gets it.”</p><p>Donald grit his teeth in anger, he had only known these two for five minutes now and they were already getting on his nerves; and that chatterbox rooster was doing nothing for the headache he woke up with this morning. But before he could voice his displeasure further, Donald found himself being brought into a tight group hug with the other two birds courtesy of Panchito.</p><p>“Wow! I just got two new best friends, a miserable run down shack, and a sleazy lawyer!”</p><p>“Who wouldn’t love all of this?” Added José</p><p>Donald growled and shoved the two back once again. “ME! That’s who!”</p><p>“If we’re all quite through, allow me to do my job and read the will.” The executor said, clearing her throat to get the attention of the three birds. “I, Clinton Coot, bequeath my museum collection and explorer’s cabana to my great grandson, Donald Duck and the other direct descendents of the three caballeros.”</p><p>“The three caba-what-os?” Donald, José, and Panchito replied in near perfect unison.</p><p>“Ca-ba-ller-os.” the executor shot back.</p><p>“Hold on a minute, you mean I have to share with these weirdos?” Donald grumbled, motioning to José and Panchito, the former of which spoke up first.</p><p>“I beg your pardon, I am no weirdo. I am eccentric.”</p><p>“And I am panchito.”</p><p>“Gentlemen.” The executor pulled out a pair of golden scissors and cut the ribbons in front of the cabana. “Welcome to the new quackmore institute!”</p><p>Apparently Donald was right about his earlier assertion regarding the cabana as the front door collapsed from the slight breeze created from the executor’s action, revealing the darkness that lied within the structure itself. After taking a moment to peer inside, attempting to get a better look at their new accommodations, the trio jumped back in surprise when a small bird in a handiman uniform popped out of seemingly nowhere and let out a loud screech right in their faces; causing Donald to clutch his head at the deep stabbing pain such a noise produced. The bird then bounced out of the house and started running around like a windup toy, belting out a strange tune all the while.</p><p>“What the heck is that?!” Donald exclaimed, trying to dispel the ringing in his ears.</p><p>The executor let out a tired sigh. “That is Ari, the caretaker of your cabana and he can’t be fired.”</p><p>“So, we must pay this good fellow?” Asked José</p><p>“Forever?” Donald tacked on.</p><p>The executor shrugged. “No, just as long as you live.”</p><p>Donald dragged a hand down his face, letting out a series of grumbles. Not only did he have to share his new home with two idiots who seemed to be much too energetic for his taste, but he also had to deal with a complete lunatic for a caretaker who was completely incompetent at his job if his failed efforts at fixing the door were anything to go by. So much for things looking up for him</p><p>“And now gentlemen, having spent the remaining vestiges of my retainer, I’M OUTTA HERE!” Yelled the executioner, breaking into a full on sprint across the campus while leaving the quartet in her dust.</p><p>“Well….” said Panchito, looking into the dilapidated cabana. “Might as well check out our new casa.”</p><p>José and Donald nodded in agreement, following the rooster inside.</p><p>While they do say to not judge a book by it’s cover, that saying clearly didn’t apply to the cabana as it was very bit as old and run down on the inside as it appeared to be on the outside: piles of junk strewn about, a thick layer of dust coating every surface imaginable, and Donald swore he saw a rat skitter across the floor.</p><p>“Man, what a dump.” Donald grumbled, heading into the kitchen to see if his great-grandfather left any liquor behind.</p><p>“But it is our dump.” José said, narrowly avoiding a suit of armor collapsing on top of him.</p><p>“And it’s full of all sort of cool stuff!” Panchito exclaimed, rooting through one of the junk piles and pulling out various trinkets.</p><p>At that point Donald tuned out the duo's conversation as he started rooting through the various cabinets in the cabana’s kitchen. On the upside, the entire place was stocked up with fresh goods so at least they wouldn’t have to worry about the food situation for awhile. Eventually Donald managed to find what he was looking for in the form of an old bottle of red wine, the label was that of a rather cheap brand but the duck wasn’t exactly picky when it came to drinks.</p><p>Before he could pop off the cork of his drink, José poked his head into the kitchen with an arm full of dusty old relics. “My friend, I think we have stumbled into something very special here.”</p><p>The parrot tossed an old chalice towards Donald, who flawlessly snatched it out of the air. Once the duck wiped some of the dirt off of it, his eyes widened at the golden sheen beneath it. He may not have been an expert at identifying treasures like Scrooge was, but years of adventuring with the old man means he knew real gold when he saw it.</p><p>‘Not junk.’ Donald thought to himself. ‘Treasure.’</p><p>The duck grinned and looked back at his newfound companions. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”</p><p>“I think so.” Panchito replied with a similar expression of glee.</p>
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  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“YARD SALE! PRICELESS OBJECTS AT DISCOUNT PRICES!” Panchito hollered.</p><p>Donald had to admit, that rooster sure had a strong set of lungs on him. The whole campus could probably hear him with how loud he was crowing.</p><p>Seeing as they were literally sitting on a treasure trove of valuables, the trio decided that the best course of action was to sell them off to all of the rich idiots at the institute for a pretty penny, split up the profits evenly, and then go their separate ways; Donald would be able to get back on his feet, same for José and Panchito, and they wouldn’t have to live with each other, everybody wins!</p><p>Sure they hadn’t gotten that many customers yet, in fact they hadn’t gotten any at all, but they weren’t worried; the day was still young and they had plenty of time to offload all of this stuff. They just had to be patient, thankfully the cheap wine Donald found certainly helped pass the time while he sat on the porch and watched the cash box.</p><p>That patience soon paid off, as a trio of college aged girls passed by their yard sale; identical triplets to be precise. One had a purple long sleeve shirt and hair tied into a pony tail; the second had a pink tank top and headband around a mohawk, skateboard tucked under her arm; the third and final was decked out in a yellow sundress with a pair of pig tails sitting atop her head. The latter of the three seemed to light up when she saw all the piles of loot and quickly rushed across the street to start rooting through it, much to the displeasure of the other two.</p><p>“Seriously June? We’ve been here less than a day and you’ve already found a garbage pile to dig through?” The one in pink groaned.</p><p>“Hey, this isn’t a garbage pile! It’s a yard sale, you never know what kinds of useful things you can find at one of these.” the yellow one, June, shot back. “Besides, all of this stuff looks really cool!”</p><p>The purple one didn’t look as impressed. “Please, it’s all probably just cheap plastic and glass. No way is any of it real.”</p><p>“And how would you know that April?”</p><p>“Well for starters if it really was valuable, they wouldn’t have it just lying around haphazardly like this; second of all….wait a second.” The one named April noticed Donald sitting on the porch and stared staring directly at him with a quizzical look, as if she was trying to piece something together from his appearance.</p><p>If the Duck hadn’t started to doze off he might have noticed her doing so and become a bit concerned, but unfortunately he was practically half asleep as April started to approach him and didn’t even notice until she was right next to him.</p><p>“Hey-” April said, touching the duck’s arm and causing him to wake up with a start.</p><p>Donald tumbled out of his chair in a decidedly ungraceful fashion, slamming into the wooden porch and cracking a few planks in the process, letting out a string of swears under his breath.</p><p>“Oh sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you like that!”</p><p>Donald sighed. “Well ya did, now what do you want?”</p><p>“Well it’s just that, do I know you from somewhere?” Asked April.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“You look so familiar, I swear I’ve seen you somewhere before but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes began to dart around nervously, the last thing he needed right now was somebody recognizing him and announcing to the whole wide world that Donald Duck was at the New Quackmore institute; with the amount of people looking for him he had to assume there were eyes and ears everywhere. The Duck needed to come up with a lie and fast, because this girl was dangerously close to figuring out his identity.</p><p>“I used to do commercials for orange juice when I was younger, used to air all the time in the 90s. That’s probably it.” Donald replied, trying to hide the concern in his tone.</p><p>“Hmm...no, that doesn’t sound right.” April replied. “It’s something else.”</p><p>It was at that moment Donald started to look for an escape route or a distraction, anything to get away from this girl before she made out who he really was.</p><p>His prayers were answered in the form of a rather heavyset goose in a tacky suit with an extremely displeased look on his face storming towards the cabana, Donald could practically smell the entitlement coming off the man from here, it was obvious he had a huge problem with the yard sale and was looking for someone to tear into.</p><p>Donald just so happened to be that someone. “Sorry kid, as much as I’d love to keep playing guess who. I’ve got a customer to deal with, see ya!”</p><p>Donald quickly stepped around the bewildered college student and started heading towards the goose to meet him in the middle of the yard, bracing himself for the barrage of insults and complaints that the man had locked and loaded.</p><p>“What do you people think you’re doing?!” The goose screamed.</p><p>Donald looked around at the piles of items for sale before turning back to him. “A yard sale? What does it look like we’re doing?”</p><p>“You are in violation of New Quackmore etiquette!” Yelled the goose, jabbing a finger into Donald’s chest. “If you do not stop this instant, YOU WILL BE EJECTED FROM THE INSTITUTE!”</p><p>“On whose authority? This is technically private property, that I- I mean we own.”</p><p>The goose sputtered, turning even redder. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!”</p><p>“No, do you know who I am?” Donald sarcastically replied.</p><p>“N-no…”</p><p>“Then I guess we’re even. Now get lost.”</p><p>The goose’s jaw very nearly fell off in shock, angry coughs and wheezes starting to spew forth as he tried to wind up a second retort only to stop when a strange purple glow caught his eye. Donald followed his gaze and found that a small box in one of the piles had flipped open and revealed a small purple ring that was giving off the glow.</p><p>José quickly took note of his interest and slid up between them, taking the ring in his hands and holding it out like a salesman. “Oh, I see this joya has caught your eye my friend.”</p><p>“It does seem rather alluring…”</p><p>“And with good reason, this is a part of the Agones collection. A jewelry set owned by an old Swedish royal family first forged in the 15th century, this ring was the crowning jewel of it and is quite literally a one of a kind piece. Normally this would be valued at well over ten-thousand dollars, but I’m willing to part with it for only one-thousand; quite a steal right?”</p><p>The goose pursed his lips. “Very well, you have a deal. Will you take a check?”</p><p>“Certainly!” José exclaimed. “Pleasure doing business with you.”</p><p>Just as the aristocrat turned to leave, something seemed to occur to him and he quickly turned back on his heel.</p><p>“Actually, there’s one more thing I’ve been in the market for recently. You wouldn’t have happened to have seen a leather bound, jewel encrusted book with gold inlay, as if it was crafted from magic, forged from stardust, and published by the gods themselves...would you?” Asked the goose. “Because if you have I’d be willing to pay hmm….one million for it; in addition to the cabana and all of it’s contents of course.”</p><p>It was Donald’s turn to look shocked. “O-one million?!”</p><p>“I’m sure it is in there somewhere.” José said, putting a hand on Donald’s shoulder.</p><p>“We’ll find it! Stay right there and don’t move!” Panchito chimed in, sliding up to the group.</p><p>The trio quickly sprinted back into the cabana, turning the place upside down in search of the book that the goose had mentioned earlier, the prospect of one million dollars serving as one heck of a motivator for their search.</p><p>“Ya know.” Donald remarked, throwing books aside. “I didn’t know you knew so much about jewelry.”</p><p>José chuckled. “I don’t, I just made up that pitch on the spot.”</p><p>Donald stared at the brazilian in silence for a few moments before letting out a loud laugh.</p><p>“Hey guys! You’ll never guess what I just found!” Panchito sang.</p><p>“The book?!”</p><p>“No, A book that could be THE book.” the rooster replied.</p><p>Donald rolled his eyes. “Hilarious.”</p><p>They made their way over to the glass case that housed the book Panchito mentioned earlier, much to their joy the book inside matched the goose’s description to a T; leather bound, jewel encrusted, with a golden inlay.</p><p>Donald wasted no time in prying open the glass case and fishing the book out, only to stop the second he got his hands on it. Right away he could tell that this book was powerful, he could literally feel it pulsating with magical energy in his grip, and his curiosity ended up being aroused.</p><p>“Huh, what’s so special about this book?” Donald said, trying in vain to pry it open only to have it gently taken out of his hands by José.</p><p>“Please, please. Allow me, Oh Ari!”</p><p>The aforementioned bird zoomed up in front of them with a woo-hoo.</p><p>“My friend, your door maintenance skills are the stuff of legend. Can you apply the same expertise to a book lock?”</p><p>Ari nodded and examined the book lock, pulling out an oil can and squirting a few drops onto the lock before giving it a good polish that left it shining. Against all logic, this course of action caused the lock to literally come flying apart.</p><p>“Nice job!” Said Panchito.</p><p>Ari cooed with a salute and disappeared once more, leaving the trio to find out just why that goose was willing to pay so much for an old book.</p><p>“Now let’s see he-” Donald was cut off mid sentence by a bright flash of light exploding forth from the book when he opened it, stunning all three of them as the book fell out of his hands.</p><p>It’s pages began to rapidly turn automatically until it stopped on an illustration of a lock, Donald got closer to try and get a better look only to jump back once more when a pillar of light spewed from the pages of the book and filled the room with light. When it dissipated, the trio was faced with a large golden eagle decked out in amazonian warrior garb with a stern expression.</p><p>The woman took one look at the birds and snarled, pulling out a bow and taking aim at them. “Any final words mortals?”</p><p>Nobody could have predicted what occurred next, not even Donald. The only explanation that the duck could come up with was that seeing a large warrior pointing several spectral arrows at him kicked in some of his old instincts that he had gained from his various adventures and personas; Donald lunged forward and slammed his palm into the goddess’ throat. She stumbled back in surprise, dropping her weapon, which allowed Donald to kick her right in the gut and follow up with a judo throw over his shoulder that left her lying on her back; the duck then proceeded to snatch up her bow and point the sharper end at her throat while a webbed foot on her chest kept her pinned.</p><p>The duck blinked for a few moments, slowly realizing that he had just taken on what was likely a god in hand to hand combat and won in less than a minute while half drunk nonetheless. Looking around the room he saw that his companions were in a similar state of shock from the display he had just put on.</p><p>“What the- how did you- huh?!” The eagle sputtered out.</p><p>Donald turned back towards her, recovering his composure. “Basic instincts. Now who are you? And why were you trying to attack us?”</p><p>“Wait, Caballeros? Is that you?”</p><p>“Caballeros? What are you talking about?” Donald asked, still keeping the goddess in place.</p><p>“Hey, didn’t that sleazy lawyer mention something about us being the descendents of ‘the three cabarellros?” Panchito said.</p><p>“Yes, yes she did. But how does that involve her?” José said, motioning to the woman on the floor.</p><p>“Descendents? How- how long has my book been closed?!”</p><p>“I’m asking the questions here.” Donald growled. “Who are you?”</p><p>The goddess completely ignored the question and grabbed ahold of Donald’s leg, pushing the duck off of her as she rushed over to the window and let out several gasps of horror at the sighs she beheld outside.</p><p>“It’s worse than I thought, I must have been in there for a few hundred years!”</p><p>“That’s nice, now can you please tell us who you are?!” Donald yelled.</p><p>“Right, sorry.” the goddess cleared her throat. “I am Xandra goddess of adventure!”</p><p>José, Panchito, and Donald looked at each other in slight confusion.</p><p>“Okay, so how do you know our ancestors?”</p><p>Xandra huffed, picking the golden book up off the floor. “Alright, let me play it from the beginning….”</p><p>With a snap of her fingers, a massive projection leapt out of the book to display a shimmering cosmic void.</p><p>“Across the globe and beyond are a multitude of mystic points, upon which myths and legends are born. This atlas is a map to them all but only I can harness its power. Centuries ago, a dark wizard named lord Felldrake gained possession of the atlas and bound me to the book; forcing me to take him to these fantastic worlds. While there, Felldrake disrupted the balance of mystical forces, bending them to his evil will, and built an army to take over the universe. Felldrake’s victory seemed certain, until they appeared: the Three Caballeros!” Xandra explained.</p><p>Donald’s eyes nearly jumped to the top of his forehead when the projection displayed the aforementioned heroes, who were virtually identical to him and the two birds sitting next to him. Maybe he’d have to check the old family tree again sometime…</p><p>“The Caballeros stormed Felldrake’s stronghold and using the power of three magical amulets, they trapped felldrake in his own staff for all eternity. I swore to be their guide and ally, together we had ventured to many magical realms, undoing the evil of Felldrake, while searching for a way to free me from this book. During one of my most dangerous adventures, my book was closed and hasn’t been opened until now.”</p><p>“Wow this story’s got everything!” Panchito exclaimed.</p><p>“Action, Adventure, Romance!” José sounded off in agreement.</p><p>“Romance?” Donald asked.</p><p>“I have a crush on her.” José replied with a shrug and a blush. “Well, many thanks for the history lesson. But there is a gentleman outside who wishes to buy your book.”</p><p>“What? After all that, are you not even the least bit interested in what happened to your ancestors?”</p><p>“Nope.” said Donald, snatching the book out of Xandra’s hands. “I’m more interested in cash.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, due to the current state of my finances I am in the same boat.” José stated.</p><p>“I don’t really need the money but, you know, peer pressure.” Panchito remarked.</p><p>Before any of them could get outside, Xandra rushed in front of the door and blocked their path. “But I can take you anywhere on earth! Magical places no one has ever gone, you can protect the innocent, vanquish evil, and be heroes.”</p><p>“Lady, with all due respect, I’ve already been there and done that; frankly I’d much rather just go back to my normal, boring life.” Donald grunted with José and Panchito expressing similar sentiments.</p><p>“There’s treasure in it for you.”</p><p>That didn’t do much to convince Donald, treasure meant adventure and adventure meant more danger, he really didn’t want to get involved in whatever this was. But unfortunately, José and Panchito seemed to disagree with him on this point.</p><p>“You had me at treasure!”</p><p>“You had me at and!”</p><p>Xandra slipped the book out from under Donald’s arm, flipped it open, and snapped her fingers. There was a bright flash of light and the next thing the caballeros knew, they were standing atop a rocky island in the middle of the red sea.</p><p>“Welcome to the island of crete!” Xandra boomed.</p><p>“But, where are all the cretins?” said José</p><p>“And the treasure?”</p><p>Xandra slyly smiled and walked over to a cliff face, revealing a small keypad embedded into the wall. After punching in a few numbers, a massive door suddenly materialized and opened up to reveal a large labyrinth inside.</p><p>“Right in there.” Said Xandra. “If you were even half the adventurers your ancestors were, you’d have your treasure by now.”</p><p>Donald sighed, this is the exact sort of situation he had been trying to get away from and now he was being dragged kicking and screaming into yet another adventure. But seeing as he was already here, he might as well get it over with; the sooner they found the treasure the sooner Donald could extricate himself from this whole mystical nonsense.</p><p>“Come on boys, let’s go!” Donald shouted, jogging into the labyrinth.</p><p>“Are you sure? This looks pretty spooky.” Panchito hesitated.</p><p>“Oh please, what’s the worst that could happen?”</p>
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  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>Angering a giant, muscle bound minotaur. That was the worst that could happen.</p><p>They had been in the labyrinth less than five minutes and during that time not only did they manage to run into it’s guardian, but José had accidentally insulted the beast by calling his mother a cheeseburger in its native language.</p><p>Now they were sprinting through the giant stone maze with the bovine hot on their heels, Donald could practically feel it’s angry snorts hitting the back of his neck. They had tried to lose him earlier by splitting up, but the layout of this entire place was so confusing that they could barely even keep track of where they were going.</p><p>‘Okay this is bad, real bad. If I don’t do something fast we’re gonna get gored!’ Donald internally screamed. ‘Come on, think….’</p><p>Donald suddenly spied the lasso hanging off of Panchito’s belt, a plan of attack quickly sprouting from his mind.</p><p>“That’s it! I’ve got an idea!” Donald shouted. “José, insult him again!”</p><p>“What?!”</p><p>“Trust me!”</p><p>José shrugged and threw a series of moos over his shoulder and the pursuing minotaur, the action clearly enraging the beast further as he quickened his pace and focused his rage on the poor Brazilian.</p><p>Splitting off at a series of stairs, José led the minotaur away from his two companions while they followed the minotaur from the top of a wall.</p><p>“Panchito! Ride em cowboy!” The duck yelled.</p><p>“You got it! I love steering steers!”</p><p>The rooster whipped out his lasso and flung it through the air, the rope wrapping itself around the minotaur’s head. Unfortunately for the rooster, that did little to stop the beast as Panchito found himself yanked forward by the bull’s strength, landing right on it’s back like a cowboy.</p><p>“Woah! Woah! Easy girl!” the Mexican exclaimed.</p><p>Donald hopped back onto the ground floor and searched the nearby vicinity for something large and sturdy that could withstand a large animal ramming straight into it, spotting a looming pillar that would suit such a need nicely.</p><p>“Donald? Why are you stealing that poor statue’s loincloth?” José asked as the duck tore a skirt off of said nearby statue.</p><p>“It’ll make sense in a minute.” Donald replied. “Panchito! This way!”</p><p>The rooster nodded and yanked hard on his lasso, forcing the minotaur to turn around and start charging back towards Donald and José.</p><p>The duck held out one end of the red cloth for José to take a hold of, the parrot’s eyes glinting in understanding.</p><p>“Oh, I see. Toro, Toro, olé!” José exclaimed, waving the cape.</p><p>Seeing what was coming, Panchito dove off the beast’s back to safety and watched as Donald’s plan came together. Right before the minotaur made impact, Donald and José quickly sidestepped and the musclebound bull slammed head first into the massive pillar. Unfortunately, either Donald overestimated the structural integrity of the pillar or underestimated the strength of the minotaur as the force of the blow caused the pillar to start falling apart, which in turn led to a domino effect that resulted in the entire labyrinth to come crashing down around them.</p><p>Miraculously, in spite of Donald’s bad luck, the Caballeros were left without so much as a scratch on them once the dust cleared away; the rubble having missed them entirely.</p><p>That was when José saw it. “My friends, look!”</p><p>Panchito and Donald turned their gazes to see a small obelisk with three amulets hanging off of the side: one red, one blue, and one green. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which one belonged to who and seeing as they were promised the treasure of their ancestors, the trio promptly snatched them up and looped them around their necks.</p><p>But before any of them could admire their newly acquired bling, the ground beneath them began to shake and a massive pillar sprouted out from the floor, carrying them to the top of the island like an elevator. It was there they were treated to the most breathtaking view, high above the clouds.</p><p>“Wow!”</p><p>“Fantástico!”</p><p>“Holy mariachi!”</p><p>“You did it!” Xandra exclaimed with joy, appearing in a flash of light and startling the trio. “I have to admit, I thought I’d be going home with nothing but a handful of feathers.”</p><p>“Well it was Donald’s quick thinking that saved our skins.” complimented José</p><p>“Did you see Panchito ride?” cheered Donald.</p><p>“And what about José’s ability to make people mad just by talking to them!” teased Panchito.</p><p>“Yes! Wait what?”</p><p>Donald planted his hands on his hips. “We showed that stinking minotaur who’s boss!”</p><p>A massive shadow fell over the birds and they soon realized that said minotaur was now standing right behind them with a rather enraged look on his face.</p><p>“Excuse moo?” He growled.</p><p>“Did I say stinking? I meant fragrant?” Donald stuttered out.</p><p>Much to his surprise the minotaur erupted into jolly laughter. “I haven’t had that much fun since the first olympics!”</p><p>“Nice work cliff.” said Xandra.</p><p>“Moo to you too.” Cliff the minotaur replied, giving the goddess a fist bump. “My work here is done.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait a second, you set this whole thing up didn’t you?!”</p><p>“Guilty as charged.” Xandra replied with a chuckle. “I had to ensure you could measure up to your ancestors after all. You couldn’t beat the minotaur alone, you had to work as a team just as the original three cabarellos did; who left those amulets there so they could be found by those who were worthy, and you didn’t disappoint. Now I will teleport us home using this magic book.”</p><p>One quick flash of light later and the group was right back in the cabana in the exact same spots they were when they left.</p><p>“And look!” Panchito remarked, peering through the blinds. “It’s as if almost no time has passed at all.”</p><p>All of a sudden, Donald felt a tugging sensation on his neck and realized that his amulet was now levitating towards the other end of the cabana, José’s and Panchito’s amulets doing the exact same thing in the same direction.</p><p>“Amigos, I think our amulets are trying to tell us something…” Said Panchito.</p><p>The Caballeros followed the magical pull and noticed that there was a set of carvings on one of the bookshelves, identical to the ones on the obelisk in crete. The carvings glowed for a brief moment before the bookshelf slid down and transformed into a staircase, revealing a hidden room within the cabana.</p><p>‘Seriously, what is it with adventurers and hidden rooms?’ Donald thought to himself as he slowly descended the stairs with his friends.</p><p>When they reached the bottom, the trio couldn’t help but look around in awe at their surroundings. It was a bit old and dusty, but the immaculate chamber was leaps and bounds above the dilapidated cabana with piles of treasure and artifacts scattered about, a massive portrait of their ancestors taking up an entire wall, and three sets of armor to match.</p><p>“Oh boy! Very heroic!” Donald said, putting on his set.</p><p>“And stylish!” José remarked, plopping on his own helmet.</p><p>“Check it out!” Panchito bragged, mirroring the actions of his counterparts.</p><p>It may have been cheesy and cliche, but they simply couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up their weapons and strike a heroic pose.</p><p>“Well I guess you guys could be the new three Caballeros, with a little help.” Xandra said, right before the cover on Panchito’s felt down and incited a giggle from the rooster. “Or a lot…”</p><p>“Woah this place is cool!” A new female voice said.</p><p>All eyes on the room fell onto a trio of female ducks, the same ones from outside, now standing in the doorway to the secret chamber. Xandra ended up being the first to react, pulling out her bow and taking aim at the triplets who maintained an odd amount of composure in the face of having a goddess holding them at arrowpoint.</p><p>“What are you guys doing?” Asked June.</p><p>“We’re posing.” José replied.</p><p>“Heroically.” Panchito added.</p><p>“I think the more important question is who are you three and why are you even in here?” Donald questioned.</p><p>“Well I’m April.” The one in purple said. “These are my sisters May and June.”</p><p>“Sup.”</p><p>“Hi!”</p><p>“We saw those bright flashes coming from the cabana along with the magic lady.” April explained, motioning to Xandra. “And figured that we couldn’t miss out on a chance to see real magic, speaking of who’s this?”</p><p>“I AM XANDRA, GODDESS OF ADVENTURE!” Xandra announced, striking yet another heroic pose complete with sparkles and all.</p><p>“And you three.” Donald said, placing his sword back into its original place. “Are leaving right now.”</p><p>“Aww come on!” May complained. “We just got here!”</p><p>“Nuh uh, there’s no way I’m letting you three get involved in all of this.”</p><p>“Please? We can be your sidekicks and help you on adventures and everything!” June begged as Donald shoved them upstairs.</p><p>“A few extra hands could be helpful mi amigo.” Panchito said.</p><p>“Agreed, plus I’ve always wanted groupies.” José chuckled. “Come on Donald, let them stay.”</p><p>With five people pressuring him at once, Donald was forced to relent; those girls looked smart anyways, if he said no now they’d probably find a way to tag along anyways.</p><p>“Alright fine, but you can’t tell anybody about our adventures.” Donald stated. “I’m serious, this is our little secret.”</p><p>“We promise.” The triplets said in unison before May perked up. “Oh and there’s some guy outside who says he has a check for you.”</p><p>“Oh yeah! We completely forgot about him!” Donald exclaimed, rushing back upstairs with José and Panchito.</p><p>They threw open the door to see a smiling goose standing behind it, only for his expression to turn into one of confusion at the sight of their helmets.</p><p>“Uh, nice helmetry. So I believe we agreed on one million for the cabana, and all of it’s contents…”</p><p>Donald looked down at the check in his hand, the most money he had ever gotten a hold of despite being the nephew of the world’s richest duck. Even if he split it three ways with Panchito and José, a third of a million dollars could get him really far; he could head out to Cape Suzette, maybe buy a house boat, and spend the rest of his days at sea. That could be a good life, one of peace and quiet and the idea of retiring from adventuring for good seemed oh so tempting.</p><p>But as he looked back up at the smiling faces of his newfound friends, both mortal and god alike, Donald started to have second thoughts about that route. For all the misfortune and mayhem that befell them today, Donald couldn’t deny that it felt pretty good to be back in action after all this time, kinda fun actually. True both José and Panchito certainly got on his nerves but they definitely made a good team when it came down to it; not to mention the prospect of getting his hands on more treasure, treasure that he’d get to keep instead of turning over to his uncle, was just as tempting as taking the money and running.</p><p>Donald was extremely conflicted: does he sell the cabana and live the rest of his life in peace or does he stay and see just where Xandra and the Three Caballeros take him?</p><p>‘Oh what do I do? What do I do?’ Donald internally debated until he felt José’s hand wrap around his shoulder in a firm but comforting grip.</p><p>“My friends, can we really put a price tag on our destiny?”</p><p>“Well of course not!” Panchito replied. “Destiny is an abstract concept.”</p><p>Ah screw it, someone had to keep these two alive and who better than an experienced adventurer like him?</p><p>“Sorry my good man, but we’re not going anywhere.” Donald asserted, ripping up the check and throwing it right into the goose’s face.</p><p>The aristocrat clearly didn’t appreciate such an action as his face quickly scrunched up into a deep scowl. “You don’t know who you’re messing with! I am Baron Von Sheldgoose, president of the new quackmore institute and I will be watching you very closely! One slip up and I vow, on my great ancestors’, to tear your little shack to the ground! GOOD DAY!”</p><p>“And good riddance!” Donald replied, slamming the door right into the baron’s face, smirking at the yelp of pain that came from the other side.</p><p>“Wow, I never saw someone mouth off to Sheldgoose like that.” Said May. “Gotta give ya props for that.”</p><p>“But you do know he could do that right? Tear your cabana to the ground I mean.” Interjected April.</p><p>Donald just shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made a powerful enemy, probably won’t be the last.”</p><p>“So what now?” Asked Panchito.</p><p>“We wait, the atlas can monitor all the mystical forces that exist worldwide and detect any imbalances; the second one shows up, we deal with it.” Xandra explained.</p><p>“Sounds good to me, in the meantime how about we clean up the mess on the front yard.” suggested José “I do not believe it is wise to leave so many magic artifacts just lying around in the open.”</p><p>“Of course, some of that stuff is REALLY dangerous.”</p><p>Panchito and José quickly made their way outside to start sorting through the junk piles, with April, May, and June doing the same; but before Donald could join them, Xandra pulled him aside.</p><p>“How did you do it?”</p><p>“Do what?” Donald repiled</p><p>“Defeat me so easily when I first appeared. The only person who managed to accomplish such a feat so quickly was your ancestor and I know for a fact that he had to go through intense training to do it; so how?”</p><p>Donald looked away. “Natural instinct?”</p><p>“No, that was more than natural instinct. Those kinds of moves have to be practiced, learned; you’ve been trained and trained well.” The goddess said.</p><p>“What does it matter to you?” Donald shot back, suddenly becoming defensive. “So I’m a bruiser, what’s the big deal? At the end of the day I get the job done and isn’t that all that matters?”</p><p>“Call it curiosity.”</p><p>Donald wrenched his arm free from the eagle’s grasp. “We’ve all got secrets Xandra, I’d prefer to keep mine to myself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some friends to help.”</p><p>With that Donald strolled out to the yard and started passing along relics relay style.</p><p>Xandra sighed, holstering her atlas so she’d be able to help the Caballeros. “Fine, keep your secrets Donald. You can only keep your past buried for so long.”</p><p>Before she was even passed the first bit, a sarcophagus laying against one of the piles burst open and revealed a massive mummified beast; which promptly flew off and inadvertently took Donald with it.</p><p>All things considered, this was probably Donald’s third most eventful birthday.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Goddesses and magic amulets huh? Never knew the guy had it in him.”</p><p>Webby and Violet jumped at the sound of their best friend/sister’s voice and noticed that she was now standing in the doorway.</p><p>“L-Lena? How much of that did you hear?!” Webby stuttered out.</p><p>“I heard enough.” the punk rock duck replied. “So I’m guessing you guys found yet another Mcduck family secret and you had to go through it like everything else.”</p><p>“Well yeah, that’s kind of my thing…” the pink bowed duck replied.</p><p>“You want to join in?” asked Violet. “We’ve been reading it in secret with the triplets for a while now.”</p><p>“Sure why not, if everyone else is in on this secret; mind getting me up to speed?” Lena replied, taking a seat between the two girls.</p><p>“Alright, so it all started when Donald was sixteen years old…..”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>now I know what you're thinking: the triplets as college students?! Xandra as an eagle instead of a human?! BLASPHEMY!!!</p><p>But hear me out: without Daisy, I had to find a way to get April, May, and June into the caballeros biz and what better way than having some plucky college students literally stumble into their lives instead of some kids wandering a college campus? Don't worry, they're still going to be as mischievous as before.</p><p>Here's the designs I'm going with if anyone's wondering: https://ducktalks.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/tumblr_pb1njn2qdc1u95zf0o1_500.png</p><p>as for Xandra, the ducktales 2017 universe trumps all and seeing as not only are all the gods birds but the ducks had no idea what humans were during the quack pack episode I had to make her follow those rules. Besides I'm saving all the 'weird hairless monkey' gags for the Kingdom hearts Arc.</p><p>anyways, once I finish binging the original series I'll start burning my way through this arc over winter break.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Birds of a feather</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“I’m hurt.” Dewey said. “I’m wounded, guys.”</p><p>“Dewey…”</p><p>“I thought we had something special!” The blue triplet exclaimed.</p><p>“Oh stop being so dramatic.” Lena remarked. “What’s the big deal?”</p><p>Dewey scoffed. “The big deal is that our uncle Donald met another set of triplets before us! What if he’s been hanging out with them behind our backs? I always thought all those ‘fishing trips’ seemed suspicious….”</p><p>“Dewey, if uncle Donald was hanging out with those three behind our backs, don’t you think we would have figured it out by now? I mean-” Louie motioned to his uncle’s journal. “We’re pretty good at digging up this family’s secrets.”</p><p>That seemed to pacify the middle child to a degree, causing him to sit back down again in the group circle. “Still, I don’t like knowing he hung out with other triplets.”</p><p>“I think the more pressing concern is the fact that he lied about the Three Cabarellos. I thought they were just his band!” Huey exclaimed. “Not a team of heroes!”</p><p>“The band was obviously a cover story.” Violet interjected. “It’s clear that Donald lacks any semblance of vocal talent and yet they chose him as the frontman.”</p><p>“Wait, then why would they go through all the trouble of sneaking into Emma Glamour’s party if they weren’t a real band?” Said Webby.</p><p>“How about we find out?” replied Huey, opening the journal once more.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>A few eventful months after his birthday, Donald realized that becoming part of The Three Caballeros was just the thing he needed to start turning his life around. Being a hero again after spending months in a depression fueled ‘retirement’ did take a bit of getting used to, the way one has to get used to the initial shock of being dropped into a tub of ice water, but Donald soon found himself falling back into his old adventuring habits.</p><p>Traveling the world, stopping various supernatural and mystical threats with some truly odd fellows, it reminded him so much of his teenage years with Della and Scrooge when things were a little less complicated for him.</p><p>The former sailor never knew getting back to his roots could feel so good.</p><p>Not to mention, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Panchito and José really weren’t that bad once he really got to know the duo. While their various quirks and habits did grate on his nerves sometimes, like Panchito’s habit of waking up everyone in the cabana with his sunrise crows or José’s constant cigar chomping, their friendly and jovial natures eventually endeared themselves to Donald; it certainly helped that both of them proved they were more than capable adventurers when it came down to it.</p><p>Panchito’s personality could be best summarized as a combination of a party animal and an adrenaline junkie. The rooster was nothing short of a red feathered ball of energy that was always on the move and seemed almost physically incapable of sitting still. Combined with his rather air-headed tendencies made for a rather troublesome combination at times; for such an extrovert, Panchito was really bad at reading a room. However, it was for that same reason that he was such a great caballero: that limitless pool of stamina mixed with a rather unorthodox method of thinking made him completely unpredictable in a fight. Donald would never forget the time he literally slapped on a luchador outfit and wrestled a space mummy into submission, which was strange even by the standards of the duck’s past. Not to mention that whenever Donald seemed to be feeling down, Panchito would often fight tooth and nail to get a smile out of him; even if it didn’t always work, the former sailor still appreciated the effort, it let him know that at least somebody cared about him. However Donald could do without the frequent displays of physical affection be it tight hugs or cuddling, Panchito seemed to enjoy those moments a bit TOO much.</p><p>José, on the other hand, was the ice to Panchito’s fiery personality; maintaining a calm and collective composure in even the most dire of situations, along with a much more low-key persona. The parrot claimed that he was suave and silver tongued, but the tendency to put his foot in his mouth and land himself (and by extension, his fellow Caballeros) in even more trouble showed that he was anything but. In spite of this, José proved himself worthy of his ancestor’s title simply by being the level headed one of the trio; he was probably the only one that could reign in the negative aspects of his friends be it Donald’s anger, Panchito’s short attention span, or Xandra’s ‘shoot first and ask questions never’ policy and get them to focus on the tasks at hand. During their down time, when Donald simply needed some quiet time, the parrot was more than content to let the duck pull up a chair beside him and simply enjoy each other’s company in silence. Although he did exhibit some rather odd behaviors from time to time, specifically the way he teased Donald in a way that almost seemed like he was flirting with him but the former sailor merely chalked that up to José just being himself.</p><p>Xandra was somewhat of a wild card in their dynamic, one that Donald couldn’t quite pin down. One minute she could be blasting away at a horde of supernatural monsters rapidly advancing on them and the next she’d be letting out adorable squees at the various technological and cultural innovations in the modern day from video games to pop music. Despite her first impression being more than a little strong, she quickly softened herself up to the caballeros and became not only their guide but their friend as well even if she was a bit of a fish out of water at times. But hey, gods will be gods right?</p><p>Then there was the triplets, they were simultaneously an asset to the team and a pain in the behind. April was the brainiac of the trio, a major geek with encyclopedic knowledge of most major subjects be it science, mathematics, history, you name it and she probably knows it; the girl managed to figure out how to pilot an ancient spaceship within minutes of glancing over the controls. Of course this also meant she tended to be a bit of a know it all at times, especially when it came to any form of trivia facts. Then there was May, an adventure seeking daredevil that didn’t even recognize fear when it was staring her in the face; be it facing off against giant termites or lava lizards, that duck never backed down from a fight and managed to fight on par with the likes of the caballeros. That strong headed personality also meant she didn’t know when it was better to flee than fight and May often found herself having to get bailed out by someone stronger, which was usually Xandra or Donald, when she was in over her head. Last, but not least, was June who was mechanically gifted to an almost ridiculous degree; she could fix anything and build anything even when the tools she had on hand were less than ideal, sometimes building makeshift weapons on the spot, Donald didn’t even know you could make a snowball cannon out of a fire extinguisher and a water gun. She could be a little too enthusiastic about her passion however, the Caballeros having to wrangle with her habit of hoarding every bit of piece of junk she found under the pretense of using them in a project.</p><p>But for all their flaws and strengths, Donald couldn’t help but start to see all these colorful characters as a sort of makeshift family: Xandra being the strong but goofy aunt, José and Panchito acting as adoptive brothers, and the triplets (strange as it may seem) rounding things off as Donald’s kids.</p><p>It was almost enough to make him forget about the pain that had taken root within his heart...almost.</p><p>Some days he was fine, being able to ignore the feelings of guilt and self-loathing in favor of having a popcorn battle with his fellow Caballeros or helping the girls keep up with their college courses to the best of his capabilities. Other days his sorrow very nearly consumed him, the duck isolating himself from the others and numbing the pain with as much alcohol as his liver could handle; it wasn’t a healthy lifestyle by any means, but at least it helped him forget…</p><p>While neither the caballeros nor the girls ever confronted him about it, Donald knew that when they did start to notice it happening they started to become worried. The way Xandra kept strong arming him into sparring sessions so he could ‘burn off some steam’, the way José and Panchito kept dragging him out for friend dates be it at movies or ice cream parlors, and the way the triplets kept trying to introduce him to their aunt who lived in the next town over who was ‘really cute and single’. All of their efforts just screamed ‘you’re in a bad place and you need our help.’.</p><p>But Donald refused to listen, a screw up like him didn’t deserve their help, he didn’t want to be any more of a burden than he already was. It was better for everyone involved if he just plastered on a smile and pretended that everything was fine, never let them see just how deeply he was hurting. It wasn’t as hard as it sounded, the conflict with felldrake providing enough of a distraction that Donald could both ignore his feelings and hide them from others as they fought off various magical and mystical evils.</p><p>Then on one particular adventure, Donald let things get to him and the mask finally broke.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>Things had not been going well today.</p><p>For starters, Donald had gotten almost no sleep last night after being plagued by nightmares of his dead lover Kay. He was forced to rewatch the moment he lost her over and over again while he tossed and turned in his bed.</p><p>When he finally did get up in the morning, he was so sleep deprived that he didn’t even notice May’s skateboard lying near the staircase which caused him to slip on it and go tumbling down the stairs in a rather comedic fashion, leaving him in a painful heap at the bottom of the stairs</p><p>The coffee machine was on the fritz meaning that he wouldn’t be able to get any caffeine in his system to pep him up and the rest of his roommates had already used up all the hot water in the shower, leaving him (literally) out in the cold.</p><p>And all of that was before Xandra dragged them away on a doomed adventure.</p><p>Frankly, he was amazed how quickly things had gone wrong.</p><p>It had started out so simply: Xandra’s map had alerted them to yet another one of Felldrake’s plots, this time occurring at Stonehenge which (as the goddess explained) was actually a gateway to a kingdom of bloodthirsty goblins. They had barely taken three steps outside of the portal before they were taken prisoner by said goblins, who revealed that Felldrake was now their leader. After that, everything went downhill fast as the evil sorcerer stole the magic atlas and trapped Xandra back inside of it before throwing the Three Caballeros in goblin jail. It was there that the trio were completely and utterly humiliated in a show trial before being stripped naked, hosed down, and thrown in a cell all while everyone was singing a terrible tune for no apparent reason. Now Donald was stuck in a dungeon with no goddess, no equipment, and two idiots who wouldn’t stop making dumb quips. The only silver lining to this whole affair was that the girls were busy with their midterm tests and couldn’t tag along on this adventure, at least they would be spared from this fate.</p><p>Safe to say, Donald was in a pretty bad mood and the utter hopelessness of the situation wasn’t helping him at all.</p><p>The duck sighed as he sat down in a corner of the cell, head between his knees. He knew he should have never gotten involved with these guys in the first place, if he had just taken his share of Sheldgoose’s money and ran he’d probably be relaxing on the ocean right now; then again the world would have probably gotten destroyed by an evil sorcerer but at least he could have spent his final days in peace on the open seas rather than rotting away in some dirty old cell. He wanted to believe that they were going to get out of this, but Donald’s never been in a spot as tough as this one: with no rescue and no feasible escape routes everything seemed pretty much over for them.</p><p>‘Maybe I deserve this.’ Donald thought to himself, curling up tighter. ‘After getting Kay killed and abandoning everyone that ever cared about me, this is my punishment.’</p><p>“You know,” Panchito said, taking a seat next to the duck with a bowl of dirt in his hands. “With a few snails, this dirt is not half bad. Want some?”</p><p>Donald didn’t look back up, instead he merely raised a hand and slapped the bowl out of the rooster’s hand. He was in no mood for his friend’s antics.</p><p>“Come my friends, we must think! Like Xandra does.” José said, tucking a harmonica that he had gotten from god knows where under his prisoner’s cap.</p><p>“Forget Xandra, forget the caballeros, forget all of it! My life was perfectly fine before you people got involved.” Donald shot back.</p><p>“You mean homeless, unemployed, and single?” Panchito innocently replied, earning him a shot to the back of the head courtesy of Donald Duck.</p><p>José did not appreciate that gesture. “Do not blame Panchito for your own embarrassing personality deficiencies.”</p><p>“Personality deficiencies?” Donald said, his anger starting to flare up. “I’m getting this from the gullible casanova wannabe who couldn’t get a date to save his life?”</p><p>“OOOOH!” The other prisoners exclaimed</p><p>The parrot gasped, reeling from the verbal blow. “HOW DARE YOU SIR!”</p><p>“Easy guys, we’re friends. Remember?” Panchito interjected, trying to defuse the situation.</p><p>“Aw cram it you loudmouthed airhead.” Donald hissed.</p><p>“HEY!”</p><p>“QUIET!” a new voice, the goblin warden, shouted. “Don’t make me come down there!”</p><p>Panchito and José looked at each other, sharing a knowing smile and seemingly forming some type of plan between them before turning back towards Donald.</p><p>“Well I may be an airhead, but it’s still better than being some angry old drunk who constantly makes his addiction everyone else’s problem!” The rooster shouted.</p><p>“WHAT?!”</p><p>“Oh do not act like you do not know.” José tacked on. “We’ve seen you downing ridiculous amounts of liquor my friend, you are nothing more than a deadbeat alcoholic.”</p><p>“Shut up.” Donald growled.</p><p>“It’s no wonder we’re your only friends, between your drinking habits and your anger issues you’ve likely scared away anyone who so much as spoke to you.”</p><p>Donald’s face started to turn red “I said shut up!”</p><p>“And with a voice like that who can blame them? I’d be stuffing my ears with cotton if I had to listen to that garbled quacking all day.” Said Panchito with a smirk</p><p>“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”</p><p>Donald rushed forward and tackled Panchito against one of the cell walls, wrapping his hands around his throat and strangling him; the duck now huffing and puffing like an angry bull.</p><p>“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Donald screamed, slamming the rooster’s head against the stone wall with every exclamation. “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH, WHAT KIND OF PAIN AND MISERY I HAVE TO LIVE WITH!”</p><p>Donald was so blinded by his own rage that he didn’t even notice that the rooster’s face was starting to turn blue, his fists uselessly beating against Donald’s arms in a futile attempt to free himself, nor did he notice the prison warden come in until he grabbed the duck’s shoulder; which was a severe error in judgement as Donald quickly turned his fury towards him. The former sailor dropped his compatriot and spun around on his heel, slamming both of his fists into the goblin’s face with all of his might and sending the large monster sprawling to the ground with a loud thud.</p><p>That action managed to snap Donald out of his berserk rage long enough for the realization of what he had just done to settle in. Looking behind him, Donald could see that Panchito was now on his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing, trying to get precious life giving air back into his lungs. The duck’s anger quickly gave way to deep seeded horror and regret.</p><p>‘I-I almost...I could have…’ Donald internally stuttered.</p><p>“Well done my friends, I must say the performance you put on was espetacular Donal’” José remarked, fishing the warden’s keys out of his pocket.</p><p>‘Oh, they...they were just faking it so that the guard would come down.’ Donald thought to himself, the guilt in his gut growing.</p><p>As they quickly evacuated the cell, heading off in search of Xandra, Donald couldn’t help but notice the slightly fearful glances Panchito was shooting his way.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“Oh hey guys!” June said, looking up from her latest project that appeared to be a lightbulb with arms and legs. “We were wondering where you went, you weren’t answering your phones for some reason…”</p><p>“May was already calling dibs on your stuff.” April added.</p><p>The quartet looked over to see a sheepish skater girl, now removing pink sticky notes from various items and artifacts around the cabana.</p><p>“In my defense, I would have made sure they all went to a good home: mine.”</p><p>Donald sighed and merely pushed passed them, he was way too tired to deal with any of this right now, all he wanted to do was flop down on his bed with a nice stiff drink and sleep the rest of the day away.</p><p>Which is exactly what he did. The duck ignored the concerned voices of the girls as they probed the Caballeros over their most recent adventure and traversed up the stairs, making sure there wasn’t anything at the top he would slip on, and retired into his room. Once there, Donald pulled out the whiskey bottle that he had kept hidden under his bed and took a few sips to calm his nerves.</p><p>The rest of the adventure went fairly well, all things considered. Once they managed to escape from goblin jail, the trio retrieved Xandra’s book with the help of a goblin named Worm and used the power of friendship to defeat the uncontrollable war beast Felldrake had unleashed, gaining the friendship of all the goblins for saving them from certain destruction while booting the evil sorcerer from goblin town in the process. All in all, not a bad day’s work; but there was still something that was bothering Donald.</p><p>He knew that all that stuff they said back in goblin jail was just for show, he knew they didn’t mean it, heck they even apologized afterwards (granted that was to stop the war beast but Donald knew they had at least some level of sincerity).</p><p>‘So...why does it still hurt?’ Donald thought to himself. ‘Oh who are you kidding, what they said isn’t bothering you. It’s how you reacted….you lost control of yourself there, almost crossed the same line you did all those years ago for the second time.’</p><p>Donalds internal monologue was interrupted by a series of knocks coming from his bedroom door.</p><p>“Go away.” the former sailor said.</p><p>Apparently whoever was knocking didn’t know how to listen, as the creak of the door opening alerted Donald to the individual entering his room.</p><p>“Hey amigo, can I talk to you for a second?” Panchito asked, gently closing the door behind him.</p><p>Donald turned over and faced away from the rooster. “No, just leave me alone.”</p><p>“I can’t do that Donald.”</p><p>Donald felt a weight settling down on the bed next to him and sighed, he might as well see what the mexican wanted.</p><p>When the duck rolled over, he couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of the angry, purple bruises that were wrapped around Panchito’s neck. The evidence of his handiwork, at least the rooster wasn’t staring at him like he was going to bite his head off anymore.</p><p>Panchito took in a deep breath and uttered two little words: “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Wha-what?”</p><p>“I said I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said all of that stuff to you back in Goblintown. I think I might have gone a bit too far with the fake insults and struck a few nerves and I’m really sorry.”</p><p>“Panchito no.” Donald said, sitting up in bed. “I’m the one that should be apologizing, I nearly strangled you to death back there!”</p><p>The rooster gave a weak chuckle, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, you’ve got some strong arms. You should be an arm wrestler or something.”</p><p>Donald laughed, out of awkwardness or because he actually thought the jab was funny he didn’t know.</p><p>“Still I could have killed you I almost-“</p><p>Panchito silenced the duck with a finger to the beak. “We all make mistakes amigo. We all do things we regret in moments of passion, the important thing is that we all got out okay and I don’t hold anything against you; and to be fair, I did provoke you.”</p><p>“Thanks Panchito.” Donald said with a calm smile.</p><p>“No problem, besides I know how hard it is to lose a loved one.”</p><p>There was a moment of silence after Panchito made that remark, both birds suddenly realizing what he had just said at the same time.</p><p>“WHAT?!” Donald exclaimed</p><p>Panchito slammed his hands over his traitorous beak. “Mierda! I wasn’t supposed to tell you that!”</p><p>“Wait, how do you know I lost someone?!” The duck was already going over various scenarios in his head, if Panchito knew about Kay K then there’s no telling what else he might know.</p><p>“I just...figured it out! There’s a lot more than just air in here.” Panchito replied, tapping his knuckles against his head for emphasis. “Plus I come from a large family and have had to bear the burden of losing beloved relatives more than once, I know what someone in the throes of grief looks like. The drinking, pushing others away, the random spikes of anger, all of it are just ways to try to numb and cover up the pain.”</p><p>Donald relaxed somewhat, so Panchito didn’t actually know anything about his past which was good. But knowing that he had lost someone opened the door to the mexican finding out all sorts of uncomfortable truths about him.</p><p>The rooster took Donald’s hands in his own and gazed into his eyes with a strange intensity that he had never seen before in the goofball. “But you don’t need to hide your true feelings from us Donald. For better or for worse, we’re birds of a feather that stick together and we help each other out when we’re in distress. I know you think that whatever you’re going through is your burden to bear but it doesn’t have to be, we’ll always be there for you Donald: Me, José, Xandra, April, May, and June, all of us. But especially me.”</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald realized Panchito’s face was getting extremely close to his own and the rooster’s look had gone from intense to smoldering, almost as if he was imitating one of those actors on the telenovelas he loved so much. This caused several, very confusing feelings to start welling up in Donald’s chest in response to the close proximity of the latin bird.</p><p>Before things can go any further, April decided to make an appearance. “You guys went to prison?! How come we always- what are you doing?”</p><p>Panchito let out a squawk and quickly jumped away from Donald, a blush on his face and arms locked to his sides. “Nothing April, Donald and I were just having a conversation.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.” The college girl replied. “Well anyways, there’s a Darkwing Duck marathon on tv right now and I was wondering if you wanted to come watch it with the rest of us?”</p><p>“Sure!” The red feathered bird replied. “What about you Donald?”</p><p>A few hours of simply vegging out on the tv, surrounded by friends? Sounded like the perfect way to forget about the bad stuff that happened today, along with the rather awkward moment that had just occurred.</p><p>But when April pulled around the corner, Panchito suddenly pulled Donald in close. “I know you’re probably not ready to talk about your loss and I can understand that. Just remember that if you ever decide you need to vent about your grief to somebody, I’m always willing to lend an ear and keep a secret or two.”</p><p>Donald tried to express his gratitude towards Panchito for such an offer, but the mexican beat him to the punch by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before rushing off to join the others.</p><p>The former sailor stood there, blinking in bewilderment at what had just occurred in the last few seconds. Once it properly sunk in, he was blushing so hard that his face looked like a cherry tomato.</p><p>‘Stop it Donald. You’re just surprised, that doesn’t mean you like him like...that.’ Donald scolded himself, shaking off his blush. ‘Besides he was probably just being friendly, a kiss on the cheek doesn’t mean anything.’</p><p>“Donald are you coming?” Xandra shouted from downstairs.</p><p>Donald put those thoughts on the backburner for the time being, he could always sort them out later. Right now he had a cheesy superhero show to watch with his family.</p><p>One thing he was certain of, however, was that his little heart-to-heart with Panchito made him feel better, far better than he has in a long time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Webby let out one of her trademarked fangirl squeals at the last few paragraphs, a stark contrast to some of the more dumbfounded expressions of the triplets.</p><p>“OOH! They weren’t just heroes! They were boyfriends!”</p><p>Louie could only sigh. “Well, I guess that’s another thing we can add to the list of things we never knew about uncle Donald.”</p><p>“But that raises more questions, uncle Donald said Panchito and José were just his college friends. If they were his boyfriends, why didn’t he ever tell us? I mean it’s not like he had a reason to keep it from us.” Said Huey.</p><p>“Maybe he was scared that if he came out as bi his family would reject him?” Lena suggested only for the whole room to turn towards her and give her ‘the look’</p><p>“Right, I should have realized that sounded stupid the minute I said it.”</p><p>“Well from what I’ve seen he still maintains a positive relationship with the duo, so we can rule out ‘bad break up’.” Violet interjected. “But that still leaves a lot in the air for speculation, we don’t even know if he pursed a romantic relationship with his fellow caballeros at all.”</p><p>“Oh come on, did you not hear how Panchito was looking at Donald? There’s no way they didn’t date, right Dewey?” Said Webby, only to notice the triplet was still pouting. “Dewey? Are you still jealous that Donald spent time with other triplets?”</p><p>“He called them his kids Webby, HIS KIDS!”</p><p>“Look as much as I would love to continue to debate Donald Duck’s sexuality as well as the relationships he has with his various adoptive children. Lena and I should probably get going, we’ve got a star gazing session later tonight and we need to get prepared.”</p><p>“Oh shoot that was tonight?” Lena said, standing up from her spot in the circle. “Sorry pink, but we can’t miss this. Can we pick this up some other time?”</p><p>“Of course! I have to know why Donald never told us about dating the caballeros!”</p><p>
  
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm back! Finals are over and so are the holidays, my schedule is finally clear to write!</p><p>to be honest, I went back and forth on whether to make Donald, Jose, and Panchito the 'brave' caballeros and the 'gay' caballeros. Donald/jose/panchito is my OT3 and second favorite OTP (donald/daisy takes the top spot) and I really wanted to put them in; but I didn't want to cheapen the relationship that Kay and Donald had by having him move onto those latin men so soon. Eventually the gay caballeros won out simply because I just love it too much and I figured out a way to make it work from a storyteller's perspective.</p><p>Anyways, the next chapter will have the return of some familiar faces. Points to whoever can guess who they'll be.</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. when friends collide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>happy new year everybody! At the time I'm posting this chapter it should be midnight on january 1st, 2021 (mountain standard time) and what better what to start off a new year than with a new chapter?</p>
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<p>A loud series of knocks came from the front doors of Mcduck manor, echoing through the halls of the largely empty house.</p>
<p>“I’ll get it!” Donald shouted, the duck having been conveniently walking through the foyer of the mansion at the time.</p>
<p>Upon opening the doors, Donald was greeted by the sight of a punk rock duck and a nerdy hummingbird.</p>
<p>“Ah, hi Violet, hi Lena!” Donald cheerfully greeted the duo. “Come to see Webby again?”</p>
<p>“Yep, just doing one of our routine ‘hangouts’.” Violet replied.</p>
<p>“Alright have fun and stay out of the west wing today.”</p>
<p>“Why? What’s in the west wing?” Lena asked</p>
<p>“Parasprite infestation, Scrooge had to call in a specialist to deal with it. He was very insistent that NOBODY set foot in there” Donald explained. “Anyways, come on in!”</p>
<p>As the former sailor moved to let the girls into the manor, he noticed something strange. It might have been a trick of the light, but Donald could have sworn that Violet and Lena gave him a rather odd look from out of the corners of their eyes as they passed him by, almost like they were keeping some sort of secret from him.</p>
<p>But Donald shrugged it off, he was probably just seeing things. The kids wouldn’t keep anything big from him, besides he had some chores to do and the boiler on the houseboat wasn’t going to fix itself.</p>
<p>If only he realized how wrong he was at the time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
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  <p> </p>
</div><p>“You know, everytime I think I’ve gotten used to going on mystical adventures, the world keeps finding a way to throw us curveballs.” April remarked, pushing open the door to the cabana. “I mean fighting living statues of George Washington alongside the guy’s ghost with Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson backing us up? That’s a whole new level of weird.”</p>
<p>“Yep. Welcome to my world.” Donald remarked, following behind her.</p>
<p>“You know you keep saying stuff like that, how you’ve ‘seen it all before’ and ‘been doing this for years’ but you never tell us why you’re so desensitized to adventure.” Xandra added.</p>
<p>“It probably has something to do with that mysterious past of his that he never wants to talk about.” Said June. “speaking of-”</p>
<p>“No. I’m still not ready to tell you guys yet, you’ve got your secrets and I’ve got mine.”</p>
<p>The gearhead merely pouted in defeat, having learned a long time ago that it was completely pointless to even attempt to drag the truth out of the duck as he was as tight lipped as they come in regards to secrets.</p>
<p>“In any case, the important thing is that we got what we needed: The Spark of Life!”</p>
<p>Glancing down at the small glowing rock on the table, the group had to admit that they weren’t exactly wowed by the artifact</p>
<p>“For a spark of life, it’s pretty unimpressive.” said May.</p>
<p>“My phone gives off more light than this.” April added.</p>
<p>The eagle goddess scoffed. “Despite how it looks, the spark of life is incredibly powerful and guarding it is a huge responsibility. Back in ancient china the spark blah, blah blah blah…”</p>
<p>Donald decided to tune out Xandra’s history lesson for the moment, the others could always fill him in later on the details. Right now he had more important things to think about: how he was going to deal with what happened last week. His outburst in goblin jail had long been forgiven once it came to light, it was a stressful situation and everyone knew how hot headed he could be under stress so none of them truly held any ill will against him; but that wasn’t his primary concern, his primary concern was that Panchito had acted oddly romantic towards him during their discussion and even kissed him, granted it was just a kiss on the cheek but it was clearly done in much more than a platonic sense.</p>
<p>Try as he might, he couldn’t shake that gesture from his mind nor the feelings that came after it. Donald knew he wasn’t gay, that was a given, his various (failed) high school relationships with those of the opposite gender and his romance with Kay K had long since proved that he liked girls. At the same time however, he wasn’t the least bit disgusted by Panchitos advances towards him, he wasn’t even uncomfortable with them, if anything he was actually pretty flattered that the rooster seemed to be attracted to him and he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t enjoy the kiss more than he reasonably should have. That’s where he started getting a little confused, you weren’t supposed to like guys and girls right? It was supposed to be one or the other, so why was he feeling this way?</p>
<p>The realization that all of Panchito and José’s ‘friendly gestures’ were actually their attempts to seduce the duck certainly didn’t help matters at all, because even when Donald figured out that both of his fellow Caballeros had a thing for him he still wasn’t bothered by it. In fact the only real roadblock to him pursuing a relationship with either of them, apart from breaking one of their hearts, was the fact that he felt like he would be betraying Kay’s memory by doing so; it had only been about two years since she died saving the world and Donald still wasn’t over her, how could he be? She was the best thing that had happened to him.True he had been getting better, the pain starting to fade and the void in his heart beginning to fill up once more with the help of his new family, but he wasn’t ready to move on and he certainly wasn’t ready to enter a romantic relationship; at the same time, however, it was fairly tempting to pursue one of the two latin men he had shacked up with which only served to make the duck’s internal conflict of his feelings even more chaotic.</p>
<p>Donald was finally broken out of his internal debate by a series of loud knocks coming from the front door, seeing as his roommates were too enraptured by Xandra’s tale and Ari was nowhere to be found, the duck decided to answer it himself. Although once he did so, he immediately regretted it.</p>
<p>Standing on the front porch was a rather snobbish looking peacock in a purple blouse with a pink sweater tied around her neck, a pair of cat eye glasses balanced on her beak and a hairstyle reminiscent of a palm tree sitting atop her head. The bird was currently starting at Donald like one would at a pile of trash, looking him up and down with an expression of contempt.</p>
<p>He already didn’t like her. “Can I help you?”</p>
<p>“That depends, are you the one maintaining residency here?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Donald nodded. “Me and my seven roommates.”</p>
<p>After an extremely brief moment of surprise at his response, the peacock continued. “I am Eugenia Ferdinand-Ferdinand, vice president of the New Quackmore institute”</p>
<p>“Okay, and are you here to scold my friends and I like Sheldgoose did? Because if you are you can just turn around and leave right now.”</p>
<p>“Hardly, while I don’t much care for your….bohemian lifestyles. I have far more composure and manners than that blow heart idiot who doesn’t even deserve his position as-” Eugenia stopped mid-sentence, taking in a deep breath to calm herself down. “I’m sorry, I’m getting off topic. I’m here because tonight is the annual institute soiree and as residents you and your houseguests are required to attend, although as this is an evening of elegance and sophistication some of you should sit this one out.”</p>
<p>“Elegance? Sophistication?” April said, poking her head out from behind Donald. “Oh we are so going!”</p>
<p>Donald frowned and gently pushed the purple sweater wearing duck back into the cabana. “Alright, I’ll tell the others. Is there anything else?”</p>
<p>“No, that will be all. Good day.” Eugenia replied, her tail feathers fanning out as she walked away from the cabana.</p>
<p>Closing the door behind him, Donald turned to face the others who were already excitedly chattering away about what they had just heard.</p>
<p>“No! Absolutely not! A thousand times no!”</p>
<p>“Oh come on May, it’ll be fun!” April pleaded.</p>
<p>The skater duck shook her head. “A ‘sophisticated and elegant soiree ain’t exactly my idea of fun June! I’ll have to wear a dress and rub elbows with some stuffy old birds, thanks but no thanks.”</p>
<p>“But this is our chance to get noticed!” June said. “there’s probably gonna be all kinds of rich investors and celebrities there and stuff, I’ll be able to pitch my inventions and land a cushy job as an engineer and change the world with my creative genius!”</p>
<p>“You mean like you did with that sonic screwdriver?” May sarcastically replied. “Sorry, but there is no way you’re gonna convince me to go to that dumb party. I’m sitting this one out.”</p>
<p>“Seconded.” Donald said, sitting next to May. “fancy parties aren’t my thing, everyone there is probably just trying to show off how rich and influential they are and I had enough of that growing up, hard pass.”</p>
<p>“Alright, ignoring that cryptic reference to your past, how about you Xandra?” Asked April.</p>
<p>“Ya know it has been centuries since I’ve been to a party.” The eagle replied with a nervous twirl of her hair. “Do I look okay to go out?”</p>
<p>“Well you’re outfit is really outdated, but we’ll work on that.” The brainiac said before turning to the Caballeros. “Panchito, José you guys want in on this?”</p>
<p>“No thank you, I am in the same boat as Donal’ and May. Every person you meet at such fancy parties is just so…” José waved his hand through the air trying to find the right words.</p>
<p>“Fake?” Panchito suggested.</p>
<p>“Exactly, always putting on masks of kindness and civility to hide their true intentions.”</p>
<p>Panchito nodded. “I’m with José on this one, those parties are always so quiet and lame. A cozy night at home seems much more fun</p>
<p>“Good because you’ll have to be on guard duty tonight, make sure that the spark of life never leaves your sight.” The goddess explained as she was led upstairs.</p>
<p>“Can do.” Donald replied with a salute, only to have the attention of the whole room drawn to the front door once more when another series of knocks started resonating from it, much more frantic and louder than the previous ones.</p>
<p>The duck briefly glanced at the others before hopping out of his seat to answer it once more, the banging against the wood continuing all the way until he reached the door. Unfortunately, right before Donald could reach the door knob, the entire thing gave way and fell off of it’s hinges which left the former sailor just BARELY enough time to hop out of the way when it hit the floor with a resounding slam. When he finally worked up the nerve to see who was so impatient to speak with them that they literally had to break down the front door, Donald nearly felt his heart jump up into his throat.</p>
<p>Standing there, right on the porch, were two individuals: one was a mouse in a black turtleneck sweater and bright red pants with yellow shoes, two massive ears sitting atop his head like a strange hat; the other was a tall and lanky dog with a worn muzzle, green hat on his head, orange sweater and black vest on his torso, and a pair of blue jeans and oversized brown shoes to complete the look. Both of them were staring at Donald with expressions that were equal parts relieved and disappointed.</p>
<p>The duck had no idea how or why, but his old navy buddies had tracked him down and they were now standing right in front on him</p>
<p>“Hey Mickey, Hey Goofy.” Donald weakly greeted them, dread already crawling up his back.</p>
<p>“Hey Mickey and Goofy? You disappear off the face of the earth for almost three years and that’s all we get?” the mouse incredulously replied, stepping his way into the cabana with the dog bringing up the rear.</p>
<p>Donald tries to get in another word, but he’s halted in his tracks when Mickey throws his arms around him and captures him in a fierce hug with Goofy joining in not soon after.</p>
<p>“I’m so glad you’re okay Donald, we were all so worried about you all of us.” Mickey whispered.</p>
<p>The duck took a moment to enjoy the warmth of his friends’ embrace before breaking free and pushing them away.</p>
<p>“Alright, alright. I'm happy to see you guys too but what are you doing here?” Donald asked. “And more importantly, how did you find me?”</p>
<p>“I’ve got an uncle that teaches here.” Goofy said. “He mention somethin’ about an angry duck in a sailor suit walking around campus when he was at the old family reunion. Wasn’t hard to piece things together from that.”</p>
<p>Mickey’s hands quickly returned to Donald, moving up and down the duck’s body while his eyes scanned his form.</p>
<p>“Mickey-”</p>
<p>“Quiet, I need to make sure you’re okay. You’re not missing any limbs are you? How many fingers am I holding up?”</p>
<p>Donald shoved Mickey away again. “Guys, you’re overreacting. I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“Overreacting?! Well excuse me for being worried about my friend! A friend, as I’d like to remind him, got framed for terrorism and went into hiding even after he got cleared of all charges. This is a perfectly rational and justified reaction!!!”</p>
<p>“Wait terrorism?!” José sputtered. “Donal’, who are these men?”</p>
<p>Donald froze on the spot, realizing that the entire household was only a few feet away from them and currently witnessing this not so happy reunion unfold before them. He knew that he’d be caught right away if he tried to lie his way out, Donald decided that the truth was a far better option.</p>
<p>“Right sorry. Guys, these are my old buddies from the Navy: Goofy Goof and-”</p>
<p>“MICKEY MOUSE!!!” May squealed, hopping out of her chair only to trip and fall on her face.</p>
<p>The female duck quickly recovered and scrambled back to her feet, nearly sprinting over to the aforementioned mouse.</p>
<p>“Holy mackerel, I can’t believe it! I’m actually standing in front of THE Mickey Mouse!” May exclaimed, grabbing Mickey’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “I am a huge fan! I’ve watched Fantasia at least fifty times and I loved you in that three musketeers remake, I don’t care what anyone says.”</p>
<p>“Well it’s nice to meet you miss…”</p>
<p>“May, May Duck. I’m sorry, I just, wow! Meeting you is so cool!”</p>
<p>Goofy turned towards Donald. “So is she your roommate or somethin?”</p>
<p>“It’s a long story…”</p>
<p>“Well I’m sure your uncle would like to hear all about it.” Mickey replied, pulling out a flip phone with his spare hand.</p>
<p>With an almost unnatural speed, Donald rushed over and snatched the phone from Mickey’s grasp. The duck maintained an expression of primal fear as he held the device tightly in his hands.</p>
<p>“What the- Donald?! What are you doing?!”</p>
<p>“You can’t tell Scrooge I’m here!” Donald blurted out.</p>
<p>“Scrooge?” April said in confusion before an epiphany hit her like a freight train. “Wait a second, that’s why you seemed so familiar when we met! You’re Scrooge Mcduck’s nephew!”</p>
<p>Jaws were dropping all over the room at this revelation and soon Donald found himself as the center of attention.</p>
<p>“Wait, you mean our best friend is the nephew of the richest duck in the world?!” Panchito said in shock.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you tell us?!” June exclaimed. “I thought we were in this together!”</p>
<p>“Donald I swear if you don’t give me that phone, Goofy and I are hopping the first bus to Duckburg to tell Scrooge where you are in person!” Mickey shouted.</p>
<p>Their various protests and accusations soon melded into a massive cacophony of shouts and babbles, putting more and more pressure onto Donald who would love nothing more than to sink into the floor. Until finally he couldn’t take it any more.</p>
<p>“QUIET! ALL OF YOU!” The duck boomed, letting out his trademark angry babbles in the process.</p>
<p>That had the desired effect as everyone fell silent in a matter of moments, the atmosphere of the room quickly becoming incredibly tense.</p>
<p>“Alright listen, I know you all probably have a lot of questions so here’s how this is going to work.” Donald turned towards his navy pals. “Mickey, Goofy, please don’t tell Scrooge I’m here, at least not yet. Just give me a chance to explain myself, we can go to a bar, talk things out over drinks, I’ll lay it all out for you. Alright?”</p>
<p>“I dunno, what do you think Goofy?” Mickey said with a sigh.</p>
<p>Goofy shrugged. “I say we hear him out, I’m kinda curious what he’s been up to all this time.”</p>
<p>“Thank you Goofy, now just wait here. The rest of us are going to have a family meeting upstairs, I’ll be back down in a minute.” Donald explained as he herded his roommates in the direction of the stairs.</p>
<p>“Fine, but if you try to run away…”</p>
<p>“I won't,” Donald swiftly replied.</p>
<p>The group gathered in Panchito’s room, the only one big enough to hold all of them, and Donald took a deep breath to steel his nerves for the incoming interrogation.</p>
<p>“Alright, so I think I owe you all an explanation.”</p>
<p>“You’re darn right you do! You’re friends with Mickey Mouse, one of the greatest actors of our time, and you didn’t tell me? You couldn’t even have gotten me an autograph?” May whined.</p>
<p>April slapped her sister over the back of the head. “Seriously? That’s what you’re concerned about? Not the fact that he’s a billionaire’s nephew?”</p>
<p>“Look I had a very good reason to keep that from you.” Donald protested.</p>
<p>“Oh yeah, what’s that?”</p>
<p>“Well for starters I didn’t want you guys marching over there and telling him where I was, but more importantly I didn’t tell you because that’s not who I am; I’m not ‘the billionaire’s nephew’, I’m Donald Duck.”</p>
<p>“And you were worried we’d stop seeing you that way if we knew who your family was.” Said June.</p>
<p>Donald nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met a few people that don’t care about where I came from, Mickey and Goofy being amongst them, and I’m grateful to have them. It’s just that good guys like them are few and far between, most people see me as a way to get to my uncle. Not to mention he doesn’t even know where I’ve been for the last few years.”</p>
<p>“Does that have anything to do with the disappearing act you pulled?” asked José. “the mouse mentioned something about you vanishing for two years.”</p>
<p>Donald went silent for a few moments. “That’s...complicated.”</p>
<p>“How so?” the parrot replied with crossed arms.</p>
<p>“It...It’s a very painful memory that happened to someone I cared about a whole lot, one that I really don’t like talking about.” Donald said in a somber tone. “The point is that after it happened, I just gave up on everything, pushed everyone out of my life, and became a wanderer. At least until I got that letter about my inheritance and I think you all know the rest.”</p>
<p>“That actually explains a lot.” said April. “But how do you know those two guys downstairs?”</p>
<p>Donald wiped away some of the tears that had collected in his eyes. “That’s less complicated, after I graduated from high school I joined the navy. I ended up being assigned the same bunk as those two and they eventually convinced me to be their friend, ever since then we’ve been pretty close. At least until I ran away from my life.”</p>
<p>“So let me get this straight: after you lost someone close to you, you cut all ties with your family and friends and became a hobo?” Panchito asked.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t a...actually, no. I was a hobo.”</p>
<p>The rooster nodded. “But now some of your friends have finally found you and want to bring themselves back into your life?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but I-” Donald was cut off by Panchito grabbing his shoulders, spinning him around, and pushing him out of the room.</p>
<p>“Then what are you doing here talking with us?! Idiota! Go out there and reconcile with them!”</p>
<p>“Hang on I’ve still got a bunch of questions for him!” June shouted.</p>
<p>“Which you can ask him when he gets back, we are not about to stand in the way of him getting his life back together.” José said, helping Panchito push Donald out the door</p>
<p>“Hang on, what about the spark of life? You guys were supposed to guard it tonight.” Xandra said.</p>
<p>“And we will. May, Panchito, and I are perfectly capable of holding down the fort while the rest of you are gone.”</p>
<p>May’s head whipped around. “What?! No! I want to go with Donald and hang out with Mickey Mouse!”</p>
<p>“Out of the question May.” Donald replied. “This is a meeting between old friends and we’re probably going to be discussing a lot of private stuff together, I can’t do that with you sitting there. Sorry kid.”</p>
<p>May pouted and sat back on Panchito’s bed, clearly not happy being denied a chance to meet her idol.</p>
<p>“Alright then, you three can stay here while I go out with April and June to the soiree and Donald hangs out with his friends.” the eagle goddess said. “Speaking of, should we get started on ‘updating’ my look?”</p>
<p>“Of course! When we’re done you’ll be the belle of the ball!” April exclaimed, shooting Donald a look. “But don’t think for a second you’re out of the woods yet, when everyone gets home I’m gonna have a full list of questions for you to answer.”</p>
<p>“Great, I’m looking forward to it.” Donald replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.</p>
<p>Seeing as their conversation had all but wrapped up, Donald made his way down the stairs to face judgement at the hand of his friends. As he got closer, however, he started hearing shouts and bangs overlaid with Ari’s trademarked hoots and screeches. The duck quickened his pace in response and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was treated to the lovely sight of Goofy playing an odd rendition of whack-a-mole with a hockey stick ass the mallet and Ari as the the mole popping out of various holes on the floor like some kind of high strung woodpecker.</p>
<p>“Stand still ya little varmint!” Goofy shouted, swinging the stick around wildly only to have it abruptly yanked out of his grip by Donald.</p>
<p>“You guys are already having fun without me?”</p>
<p>“Sorry Donald.” Mickey said with a nervous chuckle. “I tried to stop them but Goofy wouldn’t hear of it.”</p>
<p>“Forget it, I don’t even wanna know, let’s just head out already. And Ari-” Donald shot the handibird a glare. “These holes had better be fixed when I get back.”</p>
<p>Ari gave a salute and hooted as he dove back under the floorboards, sounds of power tools resonating from beneath. He really hoped that he wouldn’t come to regret telling Ari to do it instead of handling it with Panchito and José like they usually did, oh well Ari was still able to do his job right at least half the time and even if he didn’t that would be a problem for future Donald; present Donald was going to get wasted with his friends.</p>
<p>“So where to buddy?” Asked Goofy.</p>
<p>“I know a pub a few blocks from campus, we’ll talk there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>“Ah Donald! Nice to have ya in again! And I see you brought along some friends!” the bartender, a large ostrich, greeted the trio when they stepped through the doors of the Snuggly Duckling.</p>
<p>Despite its name, the pub was most certainly not a family friendly establishment as it was the natural habitat of some of the more...free spirited students that attended new quackmore institute, unlike some of the more snobbish and refined members than ran the college. It also served as a sort of sanctum for the blue collar population of the city who frequented it to get a stiff drink after a long day at work. One would think planting these two wildly different social groups would lead to some disagreements and more than a few fights, but the opposite actually occurred as the middle aged workers and the youthful college students kept each other in check to a degree; although that may have simply been because the Snuggly Duckling happened to be one of the best bars in town and nobody was willing to gamble their odds with the owner’s strict policy of banning anybody who tried to start trouble. The only time things ever got out of hand was during football season and even then things were still fairly reserved, which is why Donald was a regular patron of the place during his down time from adventures when he just needed a break from his household.</p>
<p>“Hi Maurice, booth for three and a bottle of my usual, make sure to leave it at the table.” Donald said before turning to his friends. “You guys want anything?”</p>
<p>“Margarita.” Said Mickey</p>
<p>“Draft beer.” Goofy Said.</p>
<p>“Okay then, just put it all on my tab. I’ll pay for all of us tonight.”</p>
<p>The ostrich nodded and got to work while the trio slid into their booth in the corner, Mickey making sure to take the seat next to Donald in order to strategically trap him in.</p>
<p>The moment their drinks arrived, Donald immediately poured himself a glass of liquor and tossed it to the back of his throat; he was gonna need every drop of it to get through this conversation.</p>
<p>“So.” Donald coughed. “Where should we start?”</p>
<p>“How about with you explaining to us, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!” Mickey exclaimed. “We’ve all been looking everywhere for you!”</p>
<p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“Don’t ya know? When yer uncle heard you had gone missin’ he sent out a whole army of PIs to find you! He’s been calling us every week, asking if either of us have seen ya, same with yer sister. They’ve been worried sick! Heck, so have we!” Goofy scolded the duck. “Do you know what it’s like to have lost one of yer best friends, no idea where they are and whether or not they’re okay? So I think we deserve some answers, where have you been all this time?”</p>
<p>“South America.” Donald flatly replied, taking another sip of his drink. “I’ve mainly been drifting from town to town, getting work where I could, until about a year ago when I found myself in New Quackmore and got a letter about an inheritance from my great grandfather Clinton Coot. That’s how I got the cabana you guys found me at.”</p>
<p>“And the other people you live with?”</p>
<p>“Well Panchito and José, the rooster and parrot you saw, were the other two guys in the will; Ari is the cabana’s handibird, he’s terrible but we aren’t allowed to fire him no matter what. As Xandra and the triplets, well they’re just some college students that like to come by and hang out with us.” Donald lied.</p>
<p>The duck saw no advantage in telling his friends about the Three Caballeros, the knowledge that he was throwing himself into life threatening adventures on a regular basis would have been enough for them to head straight to Scrooge and spill the whole story which in turn would cause his family to come right to the cabana as soon as possible and either drag him home or get involved with his job as the world’s savior. He wasn’t sure which was worse.</p>
<p>Luckily for him, Mickey and Goofy seemed at least somewhat content with his answer.</p>
<p>“So you’ve just been living there with them all this time? Right next to duckburg?”</p>
<p>Donald nodded.</p>
<p>“Your uncle is gonna feel really dumb when we tell him where you are.” Goofy said, standing up from the table only for Donald to leap up and grab his wrist.</p>
<p>“No, you can’t tell him!” Donald exclaimed a bit louder than he intended.</p>
<p>The dog plopped back down. “Why not? Scrooge is your family, he needs to know you’re okay.”</p>
<p>“Because…” The duck huffed. “I’m just not ready.”</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>Donald took another swig of his drink, this time from the bottle itself. “I said I’m not ready to see him again, I miss the old man sure but with everything I’ve been dealing with lately I just can’t…”</p>
<p>“You mean like Kay.” Mickey said, causing Donald’s head to snap towards him.</p>
<p>“I heard the reports on the news Donald, how she gave her life to stop those evil spies, and I know how close you were; losing her couldn’t have been easy on you.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know the half of it.”</p>
<p>“Wanna talk about it?” Goofy asked, sipping his beer.</p>
<p>Normally Donald would refuse and keep that day to himself. But he wasn’t hanging out with Panchito or José, these were some of his best friends that he’s known for years; Donald could trust them with his life so he could sure as heck trust him with his feelings. Who knows, maybe talking about it for a change might make him feel a bit better; he still took another sip of liquor regardless, the inebriating effect taking some of the edge off.</p>
<p>“It’s just...It’s hard guys, really hard. Ever since Kay died I feel like I lost a piece of myself, one that was holding me together, one that I’ll probably never get back. I’ve tried to cope but...It’s too much, it’s just too much.” Donald let out an almost hysterical chuckle. “It doesn’t help that I know I could have saved her!”</p>
<p>Mickey gently rubbed Donald’s back. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“When we were stopping that evil organization. They were trying to launch an orbital station and Kay and I got on board right as it took off, she made it to the cockpit right as I finished fighting off some goons. I was supposed to get up there and help her but I got knocked into an escape pod and ejected from the ship, which left Kay no choice but to sacrifice herself and crash the ship into the ground! If I had just been a few seconds faster, Kay might still be alive.”</p>
<p>Donald was sobbing now, fresh tears spilling out from his eyes. “It’s not fair guys. I should have been the one to go down in that ship, not her. She was smart, brave, beautiful, Kay was bursting with potential and could have done so much more for the world; but she never got the chance. Instead I was the one to live, the duck with all the bad luck, the useless screw-up who only makes everything worse.”</p>
<p>“Ookay, I think you’ve had enough for now.” Goofy said, pushing the bottle away from Donald’s reach.</p>
<p>“What do you mean? I’ve only had…” Donald’s protests stopped dead when he noticed that he had almost completely drained the bottle of its contents.</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you’ve really had a rough time of it haven’t you?” The dog replied.</p>
<p>“That’s just the start of it! If missing Kay wasn’t bad enough, I’ve had to deal with my new job and these weird feelings I’ve been having towards Panchito and José! My head’s been spinning like a top lately!”</p>
<p>“What feelings?”</p>
<p>Donald froze, realizing that he probably shouldn’t have said that, and attempted to backtrack. “Nothing, that was just a slip of the tongue.”</p>
<p>“Donald, you don’t need to keep things from us. Whatever it is, we’ll be there for you.” Mickey said.</p>
<p>“What he said! I mean it’s not like you’ve got a crush on them, right?”</p>
<p>Donald said nothing, he just looked down into his empty glass as a blush crawled across his face and the realization of such an action slowly dawned on his companions.</p>
<p>“Oh gawrsh.” Goofy said, a hand to his mouth in shock.</p>
<p>“Yeah, like I said. I’ve been dealing with a lot lately.”</p>
<p>Mickey paused for a moment before putting a hand on Donald’s shoulder. “Okay, we promised we’d be there for you as your friends and I stand by that. Let’s just talk this over and figure things out from there.”</p>
<p>“Well, it all started-”</p>
<p>Donald couldn’t get another word out as the window next to them abruptly shattered and May of all people came flying through it, sailing over the booth and slamming into the bar against the wall.</p>
<p>The older duck was next to her in seconds, checking for any major injuries. “Oh my god May! Are you okay? Any cuts, bruises?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, not the first time I’ve gone flying through a window.” May replied, getting back into a sitting position.</p>
<p>“Wait a minute, what are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be back at the cabana with José and Panchito?”</p>
<p>May nervously chuckled. “Funny story actually, see we got bored of guarding the spark of life so I suggested that we..”</p>
<p>A loud crash caused Donald to look out of the window May had just smashed in and immediately frowned upon seeing the rather comical sight of Panchito and José chasing a bear down the street.</p>
<p>“May, please tell me the bear is just an alcohol induced hallucination.”</p>
<p>“Well Donald, I’m not going to lie to you.” May said.</p>
<p>And she didn’t, instead the skater girl turned tail and booked it out of the pub without another word.</p>
<p>Donald let out an exasperated sigh and attempted to give chase, only for Mickey to grab a hold of his shirt.</p>
<p>“Hold on there Donald, what’s happening?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, but I think that bear took something important from the cabana.” Donald replied. “I’d better go after it with the others.”</p>
<p>“Then we’re gonna help you.” Goofy said.</p>
<p>“Guys you don’t have to-”</p>
<p>“We already lost you once Donald, we’re not going to lose you again and definitely not to a bear.” Mickey replied with a determined look.</p>
<p>Donald could already tell there was no way he was talking them out of their decision now and gave a nod of approval before the three of them rushed out of the bar to join the chase.</p>
<p>So much for keeping the Three Caballeros a secret.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>The rest of the night was much more eventful than they had originally planned. Apparently after Donald and Xandra left with their respective groups, May, José, and Panchito got bored guarding the spark of life and decided to simply hide it in their bear rug to alleviate themselves from the responsibility. Unfortunately this had the unforeseen side effect of turning the rug into a live, and unusually friendly, bear who had started running amok through town with the spark of life in his gut. Forcing the Caballeros and company to chase it down.</p>
<p>During their long winded chase scene in which pretty much everyone got involved from the girls, to Xandra, to Felldrake and others; Donald’s two friend groups slowly became acquainted with each other to a degree and got along far better than Donald had anticipated.</p>
<p>After chasing the bear all over New Quackmore, the group managed to herd it back into the cabana once more with a bit of quick thinking on Mickey’s part (covering Goofy in honey was an odd solution but it worked) and thus the spark of life was safe once more; as an added bonus, Donald got to dish out a rather cathartic beating on Sheldgoose who was revealed to have been in league with Felldrake all this time.</p>
<p>Now the whole group was relaxing in the cabana with their new furry friend who was enjoying a dual belly rub from June and May. All while Xandra was giving Mickey and Goofy a history lesson on the Three Caballeros.</p>
<p>“So in summary.” the eagle goddess said, closing her book. “Your friend is the direct descendent of a team of mystical heroes who have been tasked with defending the world from the evil sorcerer Felldrake.”</p>
<p>“Wow. You’ve been busy lately, haven’t ya Don? Goofy remarked with a slight chuckle.</p>
<p>“You’re not gonna tell anyone are you?” Donald asked, although he was really referring to a certain billionaire.</p>
<p>Mickey and Goofy looked at each other, the two of them huddling close and whispering to each other for a few moments before they turned back to their best friend.</p>
<p>“No, we won’t. But we have a few conditions.” Mickey stepped forwards and shoved a cheap flip phone into Donald’s hand. “First: No more leaving us in the dark, you have to start calling us every few days and let us know that you’re still okay.”</p>
<p>“Okay, I can do that.” Donald replied.</p>
<p>Mickey nodded. “Secondly, you have to promise that as soon as you’ve gotten all of your problems sorted out, you’ll march right down to Mcduck manor and talk to your family.”</p>
<p>That one was a bit harder, but it was either promise to confront Scrooge and Della when he was emotionally ready or have his friends drag him over there and toss him through the front door so Donald really didn’t have much of a choice.</p>
<p>“Fine. Anything else?”</p>
<p>“Just that you let us swing by now and then to spend some quality time together, it’s been too long since we’ve really hung out as friends.” Goofy added.</p>
<p>“Sure Goofy, you two are always welcome here.”</p>
<p>“Well now that everything’s been sorted out, care to stay for a game of cards?” José said, draping an arm over the mouse. “We play a mean game of threesies.”</p>
<p>“Thanks but we can’t, I’ve got a bit of a date with my wife and Goofy here has to relieve his son Max’s babysitter from their duty. Maybe next time.” Mickey replied. “But before we go, would you mind if we had a private conversation with Donald on the front porch?”</p>
<p>“Certainly, just don’t have too much fun without us!”</p>
<p>Donald couldn’t help but crack a smile as him and his navy buddies piled out through the front door of the cabana, he was glad everything had worked out for the best (against all odds).</p>
<p>Goofy closed the door behind them. “They seem nice, especially that Panchito fella.”</p>
<p>“They are, sure they can be a bit annoying but I couldn’t ask for better people to save the world with.” Donald replied. “Speaking of, nice to hear that your movie career finally took off.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah, after they released ‘Fantasia’ my popularity just took off. I’m getting another movie called ‘steamboat willie’ that’s coming out in a few months, maybe I’ll send you and May some tickets to the premier.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure she’d love that.”</p>
<p>Mickey grinned before adopting a more serious expression. “I was kidding when I said we needed to have a private talk, we never got around to talking about you being in love with your roommates.”</p>
<p>“Oh, right.” Donald replied, shoulder’s falling to his sides.</p>
<p>“Hey now hang on Donald, we ain’t judging ya. The heart wants what it wants, even if ya do wanna play for both teams.” Goofy said with raised hands. “Just cause yer bisexual doesn’t mean anything to us, you’re still our friend.”</p>
<p>Donald blinked in confusion. “Bisexual? What’s that?”</p>
<p>“It means you like both guys and girls.”</p>
<p>“You can do that?”</p>
<p>“Sure you can!” Mickey exclaimed. “I’ve got a lot of friends back in hollywood that swing both ways, I can probably give you their numbers if you want them to explain it to you some more.”</p>
<p>“Huh, learn something new everyday.” Donald remarked. “But I’m still not sure if I should go for it.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>Donald turned away again. “I’m not over her yet.”</p>
<p>“I see, well I’m sure you’ll figure something out Donald. You always do.”</p>
<p>Donald nodded. “Yeah that is true, thanks for coming by guys. It feels great to get all of this stuff off my chest for once.”</p>
<p>“No problem pal.” Mickey replied, bringing Donald into another group hug with Goofy. “See ya later.”</p>
<p>“Bye guys!”</p>
<p>Donald waved goodbye to his old friends right up until they rounded the corner and disappeared from view. He then took a deep breath and gazed at the sparkling night sky, a lazy smile still hanging onto his face.</p>
<p>Tonight was a good night and with Mickey and Goofy returning into his life, giving him someone to confide in with all of his inner turmoil, he really felt like things were finally starting to look up for him.</p>
<p>Which only made it all the more tragic when he died the very next week.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***********************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Donald howled as he accidentally slammed his thumb underneath a wrench, shaking the throbbing appendage to try and dull the pain.</p>
<p>It was the weirdest thing, one minute he’s working on the houseboat’s boiler diligently just chugging along without a care in the world; the next he feels a sharp chill run up his spine, like some sort of disturbance echoed through the universe, and the hand holding his wrench slipped and the tool came crashing down onto his free hand.</p>
<p>Not to mention he could have sworn he could have heard several voices cry out in shock and despair all at once. But he merely shrugged it off, it was probably nothing to worry about, everything was just fine.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>100k words baby! what a freaking milestone! I never thought I'd come this far after half a year and here we are!<br/>I just want to give all of you my thanks, all the people who have been reading and regularly commenting and leaving kudos my story, you guys have kept me going through all one-hundred thousand of these words I've written and I really appreciate all the support you've given me. Thank you. :)</p>
<p>So Mickey and Goofy have returned to Donald's life and have helped him get his head on a bit straighter, although it will take a (literal) trip to hell and back for him to finally come to terms with his lover's death. I can promise you that I've got a HUGE twist planned for the next chapter, one that I guarantee none of you will have seen coming and I really can't wait to write it; until then, have a great 2021!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. the death of the three caballeros</h2></a>
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</p><p>“Hey, Ms.Beakley. Can I talk to you for a moment?” Donald said as he poked his head into the kitchen.</p><p>The housekeeper hummed a yes, not turning her focus away from the stew she was currently preparing for lunch even as Donald approached her from behind.</p><p>“Have you noticed anything...strange, about the kids lately?”</p><p>“Is this because Webbigail snuck onto your houseboat and tried to perform an exorcism on you last night?” Mrs.Beakley replied.</p><p>Donald shook his head. “No, although I am wondering where she got a bottle of holy water from, and it’s not because Dewey’s been poking me with sticks either. I can’t shake the feeling that they’ve been keeping a secret from us.”</p><p>“What do you mean? Their behavior has been fairly normal as of late.”</p><p>“Really? They’ve seemed skittish around me, always giving me these strange looks, disappearing at random times, and while Louie’s been much more affectionate than usual, Huey’s been avoiding me like the plague.” Donald explained. “Plus Violet and Lena have been coming around a lot more than usual lately. Don’t you think that’s the least bit strange?”</p><p>“Huh.” Mrs.Beakley replied, finally turning her focus away from the stew. “That is a tad odd, but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about; if they’re only acting that way towards you then the obvious solution is to simply talk things out with them, try to figure out the source of the problem and resolve it.”</p><p>Donald opened his mouth to retort, only to snap it shut again. How did he not think of that sooner? It was so obvious, he knew the boys trusted him and if he just asked them without being too forceful they’d be more than willing to open up to him like they always did. It’s not like he did anything to violate that trust after all.</p><p>“You’re right, I’m gonna go see if I can find them right now. Thanks Mrs.Beakley!”</p><p>“Anytime Donald.”</p><p>The sailor quickly padded off into the manor in search of the children who were currently in the attic having a rather animated discussion.</p><p>“So we’ve ruled out him being a ghost and a zombie.” Webby said, crossing various theories about how Donald returned from the dead. “Although with the way he reacted to the holy water I’m not willing to take ‘demon’ off the list yet.”</p><p>“Webby, I’m pretty sure he freaked out because you dumped an entire bottle of cold water on his face while he was sleeping instead of just spritzing it on him like you were supposed to.” Lena countered.</p><p>“It wasn’t my fault, the cap slipped off!”</p><p>“Well beating him over the head with a cross didn’t help either!” the punk duck shot back. “Seriously, you told me you’ve done exorcisms before!”</p><p>“Uh guys, I think we’re getting a bit off topic here.” Huey interjected. “We’ve established Uncle Donald isn’t undead so he must have escaped from the underworld, the question is how he did it.”</p><p>“Ooh! I bet he fought off a whole army of demons single handedly with nothing with a shotgun and a chainsaw and forced the ruler of the underworld to return him and his friends to earth!” Dewey exclaimed, striking several action poses</p><p>Louie just rolled his eyes “Well...that’s one possibility.”</p><p>“In any case, how about we find out right now.” said Violet, opening up the book and flipping it to the page they had left off on.</p>
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</div><p>Donald knew he was going to die someday, death was inevitable after all and by hook or by crook we all had to go sometime. The sailor had always hoped that he’d go peacefully, passing away in his sleep after a long and fulfilling life surrounded by his loved ones; although with the way his life was he knew that the more likely outcome was that he’d die in an adventure gone wrong, he did everything in his power to keep that from coming true and stay alive for as long as he could. But he couldn’t dodge the reaper forever and neither could any of his friends.</p><p>It seemed like a pretty standard adventure at first: Felldrake appearing in Mexico in the Temple of Light, which just so happened to house an ancient civilization of roosters that worshipped Panchito as the messenger of life who was set to square off against the messenger of death in a luchador match, said messenger? Sheldgoose of course. Donald had thought it to be an open and shut case, Panchito was a far better wrestler than Sheldgoose could ever hope to be and easily dominated the fight but his refusal to kill the man, while noble, meant that he couldn’t score the win. Things got even more complicated when Sheldgoose brought in Felldrake to cheat, which of course forced Donald and José to get involved along with that weird pet Sheldgoose and Felldrake always traveled with. Unfortunately, due to these actions, the god of death who had been secretly presiding over the match itself declared them all disqualified and their lives were now forfeit as a result.</p><p>He had to admit, he did not expect to die in a wrestling ring at the hands of a god of death after wrestling some gorilla, bat, donkey creature but then again who could have possibly foreseen something like that? All he knew was that the last thing he saw was a literal wave of death rushing at him and then everything went black, all of his senses fading away as he shuffled off his mortal coil.</p><p>If there was a silver lining to all of this, his death was quick and completely painless. Which is really the only positive about this whole situation.</p><p>Then, like a wave of cold water, Donald felt his consciousness return to him along with all five of his senses. He quickly took advantage of this and sucked in a deep breath of air, all while trying to deal with the flood of sensory information that was headed his way.</p><p>‘Okay focus. Focus!’ Donald thought to himself as he kept taking in sweet, sweet air. ‘Figure out where you are’</p><p>Blinking a few times, Donald tried to adjust his eyes to the light before his vision finally cleared up and he was finally able to get a reading on where he had ended up after death.</p><p>Despite the promising nature of the bright lights, Donald was not standing on a pure white cloud in front of some golden gates that served as the entrance to paradise but rather the interior of a building that had a closer resemblance to the DMV.</p><p>There were large pillars scattered about the floor and creating barriers, floating blue lanterns providing illumination to the room with an ethereal mist covering everything to give it an otherworldly feel. Against one wall was a massive stack of filing cabinets behind a long counter top with several dozen lines of fellow spirits standing in front of it, all patiently waiting their judgement.</p><p>While he was disappointed in the mundane nature of the afterlife, Donald couldn’t help but feel like he should have seen this sort of thing coming.</p><p>Looking behind him, Donald saw his friends and enemies alike also trying to regain their senses; Panchito, José, Sheldgoose, Felldrake, and that weird creature they always traveled with. Thankfully, he didn’t see April, May, or June anywhere despite them being present for the wrestling match that got them all killed.</p><p>‘That’s good. That means they got away safely’ Donald thought to himself. ‘That’s more than we can say.’</p><p>“Where are we?” José asked, rubbing his eyes.</p><p>“It kinda looks like the DMV.” Panchito added.</p><p>“Worse, we’ve been sentenced to the underworld!” Felldrake shouted.</p><p>Donald turned around and confronted the evil duo. “This is all your fault! If you just took your loss like a man we all might still be alive!”</p><p>“My fault?!” Sheldgoose protested. “You leapt into the ring too! If anything this is just as much your fault as it is mine!”</p><p>“Why you big- oh what’s the point?” Donald deflated. “We’re already dead, it’s not like we can do anything else to hurt each other anymore. At least you’re stuck down here with us.”</p><p>“I’ll probably never say this again, but I agree with you.”</p><p>“Well I suppose we should take a number.” said José, taking a ticket. “But I do not know how long we will have to wait.”</p><p>Turning the ticket over in his hand, the trio grew a bit disheartened at the incredibly long number printed upon the piece of paper. Even more so when the intercom gave a friendly reminder that they were now serving number four.</p><p>That’s about when something very important occurred to Donald.</p><p>‘Wait a second, if I’m dead and this is the afterlife. Then that means….I might get to see Kay again!’ Donald’s eyes nearly sunk to his head at the sudden epiphany</p><p>Pushing past his friends, Donald ran straight for the exit of the place and burst through the doors. Once outside, the duck found himself in a massive sprawling metropolis filled with busy streets, skyscrapers that reached to near impossible heights, and of course ghosts of all shapes and sizes from throughout history.</p><p>He paid it little mind however, as he frantically dashed through the streets of the underworld in search of his former partner. It took three blocks of constant sprinting for Donald to realize that he actually had no clue where he could even start to look for Kay and had basically taken off in a random direction in excitement. But that wasn’t a problem, he could probably just start asking around if anybody knew how to find another spirit in the afterlife.</p><p>Taking stock of his surroundings, Donald spotted a small green building with a glowing sign that read ‘The Old Coot Café’ hanging over the entrance and figured that was a good a place to start as any; restaurants tended to be hubs of social interaction so there was bound to be somebody in the know about this whole afterlife business.</p><p>Unfortunately, upon entering the establishment, Donald found that the entire place was completely empty save for the bartender whose form was shrouded in shadow. But that was okay, he could still get some information out of the guy.</p><p>Donald waddled over and took a seat at the bar. “Um, excuse me? Can I get some service over here?”</p><p>“Hold on there fella, I’ll be with you in just a minute.” the bartender replied, bringing a meat cleaver down onto some lemons. “There we go. Now how can I...well haunt my horseshoes! If it isn’t the prodigal son himself, Donald Duck!”</p><p>The figure quickly stepped out of the shadows to reveal a very familiar duck with wire rimmed glasses and an old fashioned suit jacket and vest, grey hair barely clinging to the sides of his head. It had been a few years since Donald had seen the guy but he recognized him well enough.</p><p>“Great grandpa Clinton?” Donald sputtered, the shock of seeing a dead family member causing him to momentarily forget about his current objective</p><p>“In the flesh, or rather in the ghostly essence, but that’s not important right now.” Clinton Coot explained. “It’s been years since I’ve seen ya Donald! How have ya been?”</p><p>Donald motioned to his spectral form. “Not well, obviously.”</p><p>“Oh right, if you’re here that means you’re dead. Mind if I ask how it happened?”</p><p>“I got in a wrestling match with an evil sorcerer and his pet monster.” Donald replied with a shrug as if it was a perfectly normal way to die.</p><p>“Ah, I always told Scrooge his adventures would be the death of him and his family. I just never wanted to see it come to fruition.”</p><p>“Actually Scrooge had nothing to do with this whole mess, I haven’t seen him in a while.” Donald replied. “I was on an adventure with the Three Caballeros.”</p><p>“The Three Caballeros?! That means you found the cabana I left you in my will, how did ya like it? Pretty nice huh?”</p><p>“That’s...one way to describe it.” Said Donald.</p><p>“Well it’s still nice to see you carrying on your ancestor’s legacy, even if you died doing it. Speaking of, where are the other-”</p><p>The older duck was interrupted mid sentence by a rooster in a sombrero bursting through the door with a flushed face. Upon spotting Donald sitting at the bar, he promptly turned around and shouted: “I found him! He’s in here!”</p><p>A parrot in a well tailor suit followed shortly after Panchito and the duo took the seats on each side of their third member, José placing a hand on Donald’s shoulder.</p><p>“You gave us quite the scare my friend, we thought we had lost you back there when you took off in such a hurry.” The Brazilian said.</p><p>“I suppose these are the other two?” Clinton asked his great grandson.</p><p>Donald nodded in reply. “Yep, this is Panchito Pistoles and José Carioca.”</p><p>“Ain’t that a quinky dink? We were just talking about you guys!” The older duck chuckled.</p><p>Panchito grew confused. “And you are?”</p><p>“Clinton Coot, archeologist extraordinaire and the Three Caballeros’ number one fan!”</p><p>“He’s the one that left us the cabana in his will.” Donald explained.</p><p>“Wait, you’ve heard of us?” José and Panchito said in unison.</p><p>“Of course! I devoted my entire life to studying the history of my ancestor, Don Dugo and his team of heroes known as the Three Caballeros along with the mysterious eagle goddess that aided them, there was no library I would not go to, no forbidden temples I would not brave, no grave sites I would not desecrate all in the name of learning more about their past.”</p><p>“Wait, what was that last thing?” Panchito asked, only to be ignored by the Coot as he continued his story.</p><p>“One of my adventures led me to the Three Caballeros underground treasure chamber, while I wasn’t able to gain access to the chamber I did build my explorer’s cabana on top of it and establish the New Quackmore institute with my partner: Baroness Von Sheldgoose.”</p><p>‘Uh-oh’ Donald thought to himself, already seeing where this was going.</p><p>“But I was betrayed, at the first chance that presented itself she seized total control of the New Quackmore institute. My only consolation came from a trip to the Amazon where I discovered the mysterious Ariquan bird along with my most prized antiquity: a golden atlas of wonder. I spent the rest of my life trying to unlock its secrets, right up until that chandelier fell on top of me and brought my life to an end.” Clinton Coot said, finishing up his tale. “After that I wound up here in the underworld and opened my café.”</p><p>“Well, thank you for the history lesson my good man but um, how exactly do we get out of this place?” inquired José. “we’re restless spirits with lots of unfinished business.”</p><p>“Yeah, I never finished that pepperoni pizza we got before we left for Mexico!.” Panchito sounded off in agreement.</p><p>“If you want to leave the underworld then you’d all better get moving or you’ll be stuck here forever once the moon goes down.” The older duck explained, pointing to the rather sinister celestial body visible from a nearby window.</p><p>“And when might that be?”</p><p>Clinton shrugged. “Probably in about a couple of hours but I’d still hurry, there’s a heavily guarded border at the northern edge of the underworld that protects the gate of the living, you make it past that and get through the gate you’ll find yourselves smack dab at the base of mount Fuji in good ol’ Japan! All of that’s easier said than done though.”</p><p>“Oh I don’t care about that!” Donald exclaimed. “I came in here because I wanted to know where in this city I could find specific spirits. There’s someone I need to see while I’m down here.”</p><p>“Well that’s an easy one, just head on over to the soul depository. They have records of every single soul that has ever passed through the underworld since the beginning of time, if your friend’s down here chances are that they can find ‘em for ya; just walk three blocks south, take a right, head down two more blocks and it should be right in front of ya.”</p><p>“Thank you very much great grandpa Clinton. I’ll see you later.” Donald replied before turning around and briskly walking out of the café, much to the confusion of his friends who managed to catch up with him about half a block later.</p><p>“Whoa there Donald, the old guy said that the gate of the living is the other way.” Panchito said.</p><p>Donald didn’t slow his pace in the slightest. “I know, I’m not going there.”</p><p>“What?” José uttered, grabbing a hold of Donald’s wrist. “But if we do not leave before the moon sets then we’ll be trapped down here forever! Don’t you realize that?”</p><p>“Of course I do, I just don’t care.” Donald replied as he freed his arm from the parrot’s grip. “I’m looking for someone down here and if seeing her again means spending the rest of eternity in the underworld then so be it.”</p><p>The Brazilian crossed his arms, looking slightly annoyed. “Really? And who exactly is so important that you’re willing to risk certain death just to see them again?”</p><p>“My fiancée.”</p><p>The whole group went completely silent at that phrase, the background noises of the city being the only auditory sounds heard between them. Panchito ended up being the one to break the tension.</p><p>“TU QUE?”</p><p>“You heard me.” Donald deadpanned.</p><p>“You...you had a Fiancée?” José sputtered out. “But I thought…when did...how?”</p><p>“It was about a year before I even met you guys. I had been dating this wonderful girl named Kay K for a few years by that point. She was smart, fun, confident, and absolutely beautiful, perfect in every possible way. I finally worked up the courage to pop the question and she had said yes, I was so happy and I felt like I had a long future with my true love ahead of me.” Donald said as his tone turned somber. “But things don’t always go the way you want them to, about a week after I proposed we got into a plane crash over Peru; I made it out fine, she didn’t.</p><p>Donald’s eyes began to well up with tears. “She was the love of my life guys, my other half, my soul mate. Losing her destroyed me and sent me into a dark place, I felt like my whole world ended that day; so I hid myself away and drowned my sorrows as much as I could, it was the only way I could handle having her stolen from me. But now...now I have a chance to be reunited with her again, to have the life I was denied because of the cruel hand of fate and nothing is going to keep me from her. You guys can go to the border if you want, I won’t stop you, but I’m going to find Kay again even if it kills me so don’t try to follow me.”</p><p>On that note, Donald took off running again, leaving José and Panchito in the dust while they shouted protests behind him. The duck ignored them, all his former concerns and worries became nothing more than white noise as he was solely focused on his task at hand.</p><p>It didn’t take him too long to find the soul repository with his great grandfather’s directions, the building itself was clearly labeled with a massive sign over the front entrance not to mention it was far older than any of the surrounding buildings and seemed as though it had been plucked from an ancient, lost civilization and simply dropped into the middle of the city.</p><p>Not wasting any time, Donald quickly sprinted up the steps of the building and pushed his way through it’s massive doors. Once inside he soon realized that the soul repository was far larger on the inside than it was on the outside, shelves upon shelves of books and filing cabinets that seemed to stretch off for eternity in every single direction.</p><p>The duck could only groan. “Of course this can’t be easy, I’ll never be able to find Kay’s information in this….”</p><p>Donald trailed off when he saw a large desk nestled between a few shelves that was marked ‘information.’, which seemed like the perfect place to start.</p><p>Approaching the desk, the duck rang the service bell a few times to get the attention of whoever was manning the place; he jumped back when a dark figure in a massive cloak popped up from seemingly nowhere.</p><p>“Yessss?” the figure hissed. “How may I help you good sssssir?”</p><p>Shaking off the uncomfortable aura this guy was giving off, Donald pressed forwards. “I’m looking for the whereabouts of a certain individual down here, do you think you can help me get them?”</p><p>“Ssssure, assss long assss they’re dead. What’sssss their name?” the figure replied.</p><p>“Kay K, her birthday was november fourth 19XX and she died on may nineteenth 20XX.”</p><p>The figure turned to some of the shelves behind them. “Alright, jusssst a minute pleasssse.”</p><p>To Donald’s complete and utter surprise, the shelves started shifting around at high speeds as if they were on some sort of overcharged conveyor belts until a filing cabinet finally came to rest in front of the cloaked figure; the figure waggled his fingers before grabbing a hold of the middle drawer and pulling on it hard, causing the drawer to come shooting out to an almost impossible length as the cloaked figure rooted through it.</p><p>“Let’s see, Kay I, Kay J, ah here we go.” The figure said, plucking out a small file from the drawer and snapping his fingers to cause it to slam closed again. “Kay K, five foot five, black hair, mid twentiesssss.”</p><p>“Yes! Where is she?” Donald exclaimed.</p><p>“Hmm. Well sssshe’s not here, I can tell you that much.”</p><p>The duck blinked. “What? What do you mean she’s not here?”</p><p>“I mean ssssshe’s not in the underworld ssssssmart guy.” The figure replied with an air of annoyance. “According to her file, the woman only had a near death experience before being revived and brought back to the land of the living.”</p><p>Donald’s beak nearly hit the floor at that revelation, the poor sailor completely shocked into silence.</p><p>“Wait you mean Kay isn’t….she never….oh my god…”</p><p>“Nope, sssssorry friend. It seemsssss assss though your friend is ssssstill very much alive while you’re sssstuck down here.” Chuckled the cloaked figure. “Anything elssssse I can help you with?”</p><p>Donald shook his head, sporting a shell shocked expression as he wandered out of the soul repository in an almost trance like state. His pace uneven and wobbly as thousands of thoughts crossed his mind all at once.</p><p>‘Kay’s alive? She survived the crash? She’s been out there this whole time?!’ Donald screamed in his head as he stumbled out into the underworld. ‘Why didn’t she come back? Why didn’t she call anybody? Was it me? Was she trying to get away from me? Or was she captured, turned into one of F.O.W.L.’s minions or maybe she became the minion of some other mystical villain.’</p><p>But as Donald walked through the streets in a silent panic, he soon realized that none of those possibilities mattered when he was faced with one unfortunate truth: if Kay was still alive, he could have searched for her, he probably could have found her; but instead he gave up everything he ever had, all that was good in his life, and fell right off the wagon for absolutely NO REASON.</p><p>‘I feel sick.’ Donald thought to himself as he grabbed a hold of a nearby lamppost to steady himself as he grew woozy, the entire world seemingly spinning around him as his ears started to ring. He couldn’t think straight, he was panicking, this new information about what really happened that fateful day was too much for the ex-secret agent to bear and he promptly threw up right into the gutter, emptying his stomach of whatever contents had managed to hitch a ride into the afterlife in between hysterical sobs.</p><p>He didn’t even notice someone letting out a gasp, nor was he aware of the figure sweeping up from behind him until they placed a comforting hand upon his back which begun gently rubbing in circles; the action brought Donald out of his panic-stricken state and he started to become aware of what they were saying.</p><p>“-hat’s it sweetie, just breathe in and out, nice and slow alright.” Said an oddly familiar female voice.</p><p>Turning his gaze upwards, Donald was shocked for the second time in less than a day when he saw exactly who had stopped by to comfort him in his time of need. It had been sixteen years since he had seen her but there was no forgetting that purple turtleneck, plaid robe, and head of greying red hair.</p><p>“M-mom?!” Donald stuttered out, looking her over in disbelief.</p><p>“Oh my poor baby boy.” Hortense said, gently putting her hands on Donald’s cheeks. “What has the world done to you?”</p><p>Donald said nothing, he simply lunged forwards and wrapped his mother in a tight hug. One that he was in no hurry to let go of as he cried into her shirt, partly because he was happy to see her again but also because he needed her comfort more than anything right now.</p><p>The matronly duck was more than happy to oblige as she returned the hug. “Shhh, it’s okay Donald. Mommy’s here, everything will be fine; come on, let’s get some food in you.”</p><p>Donald didn’t put up even an ounce of resistance as Hortense pulled him to his feet and led him deeper into the city, the duck too preoccupied crying onto her shoulder.</p>
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</div><p>Donald shakily brought the spoonful of his mother’s famous cauliflower broth to his lips and sipped it down, he had always hated the dish when he was a child but right now it was a reminder of a simpler time when everything was safe and he wasn’t such a broken mess of a man, so he devoured it like it was liquid heaven. He had calmed down considerably since his mother found him.</p><p>Hortense had brought her son to her home in ghost city, a rather small cottage home situated on the western side of the city where the more suburban areas lay. It wasn’t extravagant by any means but then again neither was Nortense, a stark contrast to her brother Scrooge, she always preferred practicality over all else and only took what she absolutely needed; in many ways the simplistic nature of the cottage itself reflected her devotion to being frugal.</p><p>Quackmore, of course, was waiting there for her with a rather angry line of questioning prepared as to why she had come home so late only to stop when she came through the door with their son crying on her shoulder. His anger forgotten, Donald’s father quickly moved to comfort him to the best of his ability while Hortense prepared his meal. After crying his eyes out and getting some food in him, Donald regained the ability to string together coherent sentences and started talking to his parents for the first time in a long time.</p><p>“I still can’t believe I’m seeing you guys again, after the crash I thought-” Donald was stopped by his father putting a hand on his back.</p><p>“Hey, don’t go digging up more bad memories. It was hard enough calming you down when you got here, let’s just be grateful we had this reunion at all</p><p>“Sorry dad. Thanks for having me over, it’s been so long since I’ve had mom’s cooking.”</p><p>“So, is it as good as you remember?” Asked Hortense.</p><p>Donald shook his head. “No, it’s even better. Thank you so much, I needed this.”</p><p>“Anytime sweetie, now then.” Donald’s mom sat down next to him. “Wanna tell me how you ended up here in the underworld?”</p><p>“Well I ended up getting in a wrestling match with a sorcerer and-”</p><p>Hortense growled. “Oh those rotten Caballeros you’ve been galivanting with, I knew they’d be nothing but trouble; dragging you on all those adventures. At least Scrooge knew how to keep you safe but those two never knew what they were doing, it’s a miracle you didn’t die sooner.”</p><p>“Now hold on dear, they may be incompetent but they’ve done fairly well saving the world so far.” Quackmore said.</p><p>“Oh shut up Quackmore.” Hortense scoffed. “If they were here I’d be giving them a piece of my mind, getting my darling son killed. And after all the heartbreak and misery he’s had to go through after losing the love of his life.”</p><p>“Mom you don’t need to- wait how do you know about all of that?”</p><p>Quackmore and Hortense looked at each other for a moment before getting out of their chairs.</p><p>“Come with us.” said Quackmore. “There’s something we need to show you.”</p><p>Donald placed down his now empty soup bowl and followed his parents into a small room bathed in darkness, his mother pulled the cord on a hanging lightbulb which caused the younger duck to be hit with a wave of bright light that temporarily blinded him; once his vision cleared up, he was treated to the sight of a large collage taking up an entire wall of the room itself. Upon getting closer, Donald realized that it was a collage of various newspaper clippings and photographs all focused upon him and his sister, emphasis on the former as Donald’s name seemed to come up far more often than Della’s.</p><p>“What- what is this?” Donald questioned.</p><p>“After we wound up here in ghost city after the accident, we talked to some of the higher ups and managed to work out a few deals that let us keep an eye on you and yer sister while we were down here.” Hortense explained. “We’ve been keeping up with your exploits all these years, even when you went through that little hero phase of yours.”</p><p>Donald spied some of the Paperink clippings pinned to one side of the board. “You know I was Paperinik?!”</p><p>“Oh please, I’m yer mom! I know when you’re lying, I know when you’re keeping secrets, and I know when you’re dressing up like a vigilante!”</p><p>Quackmore nodded. “Seeing you change in and out of your uniform certainly helped us along son.”</p><p>“Huh.”</p><p>“You’ve been quite busy for the last few years: being a superhero that saved the world, a sailor with a medal of honor, a secret agent that saved the world a second time, Joining up with some crusaders to save the world again, and even finding yourself a woman.” Quackmore said with a smile that quickly turned into a frown. “I’m so sorry for what happened, we know how hard things have been on you.”</p><p>Donald yelped in pain when his mother grabbed the side of his face and pulled, HARD.</p><p>“But that’s still no excuse for your behavior! How dare you do this to your family? Do you know how hard it was to watch you turn into a shell of your former self? How frustrating it was to see my child get chewed up and spit out by the world?” Hortense scolded Donald.</p><p>“Hey! Give me a break, my fiancée died! I have the right to grieve don’t I?” Donald shot back.</p><p>“Of course you did! But you didn’t have the right to wallow in your own sorrow for as long as you have!” Hortense shouted. “You’re a duck! Ducks don’t back down, we don’t quit when things get hard and we don’t lie in the dirt when life knocks us on our behinds! We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and come back swinging!”</p><p>“And I can think of no other person that represents that principal better than you Donald.” Quackmore tacked on, only to earn a huff from his son.</p><p>“What, because of my temper?”</p><p>“Well that’s certainly part of it, but that’s not what I was referring to. I was talking about your strength.”</p><p>Donald looked up at his father.</p><p>“You’re tough, tougher than any duck I’ve ever known and that includes Scrooge. No matter how many times life dealt you a bad hand, no matter how tough the world was on you, no matter how hard you got hit, you just kept going. You powered through everything that got thrown at you and when you did get knocked down, you were back on your feet in seconds; but most of all, you never gave up, even when things seemed to be at their darkest you kept fighting for what you believed in.”</p><p>“What your father’s trying to say, Donald, is that well.” Hortense placed a hand on Donald’s shoulder. “We’re proud of you son. We always have been and we always will be, we’re sorry that we didn’t say that more when we were alive.”</p><p>“We know it’s hard losing someone close to you, but it’s even harder watching someone you love fall to pieces.” Quackmore said. “So please, if not for your sake than for the sake of our family, pick yourself up off the ground and start acting like the duck that we know that you are.”</p><p>Donald stood there in silence for a few moments, taking in what his parents said and gazing over the monument to all that he had accomplished in his life. It took him a few minutes to make his decision but he</p><p>“Okay, I’ll try. For you guys.”</p><p>Donald’s parents smiled and wrapped him up in a big hug full of parental affection, one that the duck greatly enjoyed. He missed these hugs so much.</p><p>“Well now that everything’s settled, we had better get you to the border before the moon goes down.” Said Hortense, breaking away from the hug. “You’ve got far too much work ahead of you back in the world of the living to die now.”</p><p>Oh right, that had completely slipped his mind.</p><p>The ducks quickly hopped into Quackmore’s car, which bore an almost eerie resemblance to the one that he was driving during the accident, and sped over to the border station that guarded the gate of the living.</p><p>When they arrived, however, it was total chaos. The good news was that Panchito and José were already there so he wouldn’t have to double back for his friends, the bad news was that they were facing some horrific amalgamation of Sheldgooses and losing very badly.</p><p>“Great, looks like I gotta go save them. Again.” Donald said, before he could hop out of the car however he felt his mother grab ahold of his wrist.</p><p>“Hold on, before you leave I want you to take these.” Hortense said as she pressed two envelopes with Della and Scrooge’s names on them.</p><p>“Give these letters to Della and Scrooge next time you see them and don’t let anyone else read them, they’re for their eyes only you understand?”</p><p>Donald nodded. “Yes mom.”</p><p>“Good.” the redhead said. “And always remember that even in your darkest moments, we’ll always be there watching over you and cheering you on from the side lines. Now get out there and kick some tail feathers!”</p><p>“Can do! Bye mom, bye dad, I'll see you later!” Donald exclaimed, hopping out of the car and rushing towards the battle.</p><p>“Hopefully not for a few more decades!” His mother shouted back.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>“Your parents, you met up with your dead parents?” José said in stunned disbelief.</p><p>Donald took another sip of sake “yep, they died when I was seven. It was the first time I’ve seen them in sixteen years.”</p><p>They had cut it close, uncomfortably close, but the Three Caballeros had managed to escape the underworld and return to the land of the living with all their limbs intact despite the best efforts of the Sheldgoose bloodline. Seeing as they were now in Tokyo, Japan and had recently been resurrected from the dead the trio decided they had earned a break and chose to do some sightseeing for a change which included a stop at a sake bar. After a few drinks to loosen himself up, Donald came clean about what had happened after he left his companions behind. Thankfully both of them were the forgiving type.</p><p>“It was weird but at the same time being able to see them again after so long was nice. I really missed them, still do in fact.”</p><p>José shook his head and sparked up a cigar. “What an eventful day this has been, I never thought I would make a journey to the afterlife and return to tell the tale.”</p><p>“Me neither, at least we know what’s waiting for us on the other side now.” Donald replied.</p><p>The parrot nodded in agreement and took a few more sips of sake with Donald, watching Xandra get into an arm wrestling match with some of the bar’s stronger patrons while Panchito acted as the referee.</p><p>“So your dead novia, that’s the big secret you’ve been keeping from everyone? Apart from being a billionaire’s nephew of course.”</p><p>The duck chuckled, remembering the conversation from that night and just how shocked everyone was to find out that he used to be Scrooge Mcduck’s sidekick before arriving at the cabana, that was a fun time.</p><p>“It’s not something I liked to share, it was one of the worst days of my entire life and I still have nightmares about it.” Donald replied. “Just thinking about it nearly makes me break down in tears.”</p><p>José said nothing, he just motioned for the former sailor to continue.</p><p>“Then when I get into the underworld, thinking that I might have a chance to see her again, I find out that Kay was never even dead in the first place. So I really just threw away a great life over practically nothing at all.”</p><p>“Well I would not say nothing.” José countered.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Look at it this way: If you did not think your lover was dead and attempted to locate her, you might have never met us, never discover your ancestor’s legacy, and never become part of the Three Caballeros!” the parrot explained.</p><p>“Yeah that is true, maybe things did work out for the better after all. I probably would have never realized I’m bisexual if I hadn’t met you guys.” Donald replied as he poured himself another drink. “Still, I wonder where Kay is now, where she’s been all this time and why she never came back, I know she probably had her reasons and maybe...maybe one of them was that she wanted me to move on from her.”</p><p>“I might be able to help with that meu amor.”</p><p>“Oh yeah how-” Donald was cut off by the parrot suddenly leaning forward and capturing his beak in a deep kiss. The duck’s eyes widened at the sudden contact but he didn’t fight it, in fact once the initial surprise wore off Donald found himself deepening the kiss and pressing his body closer to José’s, hands running down the parrot’s back as their beaks massaged one another in a display of pure passion.</p><p>After a few minutes of this, the two men had to come up for air and promptly separated with a small line of spit connecting their beaks and a fierce blush on Donald’s face.</p><p>“I take it you enjoyed the kiss?” José chuckled.</p><p>“It...it was nice. But I don’t think I want to start dating just yet.”</p><p>José looked at Donald with a raised eyebrow. “Por que não?”</p><p>“Don’t get me wrong!” the duck asserted. “I like you a lot and I can certainly see us dating someday, but I just don’t think I’m emotionally ready for a relationship. I’m still not completely over Kay and with this whole Caballeros business I can’t really afford to have a boyfriend if I have to risk losing them to some evil sorcerer.”</p><p>“I understand, although I must say I am somewhat disappointed.”</p><p>“Hey, I’m not saying no. Just not right now, maybe once I’ve finally gotten some closure over Kay’s disappearance and Felldrake has been dealt with we could...test the waters and see where things go.” Said Donald, nervously playing with a few of the feathers on his head.</p><p>“I’ll be sure to let Panchito know that you’re open to the idea.”</p><p>Donald paused. “Why?”</p><p>“Well he and I had a few discussions during your absences and decided that since we were both very attracted to you and each other that it would be much simpler for everyone if we just shared you.” The Brazilian explained.</p><p>Donald’s glass abruptly fell from his hands in surprise, shattering all over the floor, as he turned to the parrot in shock.</p><p>“YOU WHAT?!”</p><p>“Oh come now, we made our feelings very clear towards you Donal’” José crooned, playfully walking his fingers up Donald’s arm. “And I am certain you have room for two beautiful Latin men in that big heart of yours, don’t you?”</p><p>The duck nervously tugged at his shirt collar, the room suddenly becoming very hot for some reason; spying the bottle of sake still sitting on the counter, Donald snatched it up and downed the entire thing to try and alleviate how flustered he was feeling right now</p><p>“Uh oh, I think our companions have gotten themselves into a rough spot.” José said.</p><p>Placing the now empty bottle onto the bar top, Donald looked over to see that some rather threatening men were now surrounding Panchito and Xandra and they all seemed rather upset. The duck quickly realized that they were all part of the Shie Hassaikai, a yakuza organization he had several runs in with during his days at S.H.U.S.H. and Donald knew that they were one of the most vicious criminal gangs in all of Japan. They were not walking out of this bar without a fight.</p><p>“We’d better go save them, I’ll get the ones on the left and you get the one on the right. Sound good?” Donald explained.</p><p>José hopped off his barstool and drew his umbrella like a sword. “I suppose we do not have much of a choice.”</p><p>By the time they all managed to get out of there, they had left behind over fifty yakuza members in varying states of injury lying on the ground. All in all, it was a pretty good day despite all of them dying at one point.</p><p>But their greatest challenge had yet to come, one that would decide the fate of both the real and mystical worlds forever.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**********************</p>
</div><p>Violet quickly slammed the journal closed and hid it out of sight when she heard footsteps approaching the attic, Webby grabbing a board game and scrambling to get it set up shortly after to make it look like they had a good reason to be up here.</p><p>When the door finally did open, Donald ended up being the one to poke his head in with a concerned expression adorning his face.</p><p>“Everything okay in here?” The former sailor asked.</p><p>“Yep, we were just playing uh…” Louie peered at the board game box. “Trials of trolley.”</p><p>“Alright well um, Huey?”</p><p>The red triplet looked up at his uncle, there was something in his eyes that the duck couldn’t quite put his finger on.</p><p>“You know if you’re having problems with something, you can tell me right?” Asked Donald.</p><p>Huey gave a moment's pause before replying. “Sure Uncle Donald, I trust you.”</p><p>Donald noticed Huey’s hesitation but didn’t comment on it. “Just making sure, you guys have fun with your board game.”</p><p>Donald shut the door and let out a sigh into the empty hallway. He didn’t want to believe it, but the way Huey reacted left no doubt in his mind:</p><p>They were hiding something from him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>in case you were wondering: yes Kay is most definately alive and she's still out there somewhere in the world; and she WILL return in this story, but probably not for a long time. And as for whether or not she's Webby's mom, well I'll let you guys debate that one for the time being. </p><p>Anyways, the three caballeros arc is coming to a close very soon. It will probably wrap itself up in about one or two more chapters depending on the length and then we'll move onto kingdom hearts, that's gonna be a fun one to do. :) </p><p>As always, thanks for reading everybody</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. the Three Caballeros' finest hour!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It was a lovely day at Duckburg manor, shining sun and cloud free sky. Della decided that such weather was perfect for spending some quality time with her brother Donald, tuning up the cloudslayer together.</p><p>One would think that the duck’s temper combined with his bad luck would keep Della from letting her twin anywhere near the mechanical bits of her favorite plane, but years of repairing his houseboat (often from the ground up) had made him fairly mechanically apt. He was by no means on her level but he could make a great assistant and as an added bonus they got to hang out, something they haven’t really been doing as often as they should.</p><p>Unfortunately, Donald didn’t seem to be too involved in the task at hand.</p><p>“Donald can you hand me that wrench?” Asked Della, only to receive no reply from her brother.</p><p>The pilot looked up and saw that her twin was once again staring off into the distance, lost deep in his thoughts, and could only groan at the sight. When she had invited him to spend some quality time with her, she expected him to take a bit more active roll instead of dozing off every three seconds.</p><p>Placing down the tool that was currently in her hand, Della calmly walked over to her other half, got right up next to his ear, took in a deep breath, and screamed.</p><p>“DONALD!”</p><p>The sailor duck jumped up and squawked in surprise, head darting around as if he had just been snapped out of a trance. “Huh? What?”</p><p>“Can you PLEASE give me that wrench?”</p><p>“Oh right, sorry.” Donald replied, pulling the aforementioned tool out and handing it to his sister who quickly returned to her project.</p><p>“Have you been feeling okay?” Della asked over the sound of a cranking wrench. “You’ve really been out of it lately.”</p><p>“I’m fine, really I am.” Donald replied, fiddling with some wires. “I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking lately.”</p><p>“Anything I should be worried about?”</p><p>Donald paused for a moment, giving the question some thought, before he spoke. “Probably not, no.”</p><p>Della shrugged and returned to the task at hand. “Whatever you say bro. I’ll take your word for it.”</p><p>Donald maintained his focus for another few moments before he returned to his thoughts once more.</p><p>‘What could they be keeping from me? It can’t be another one of their ‘investigations’, those kids have dug up every family secret that we have...unless’ Donald shook his head. ‘No, you’re just being paranoid. There’s no way they found it and even if they did they probably thought it was just junk.’</p><p>Before he could ponder it any further, his hand slipped and Donald was sent flying back when several hundred bolts shot from a live wire straight into his body.</p><p>As he was lying there on the ground, being checked over by his doting sister. His adoptive kids were in their room, tearing their way through the exact object that Donald had been so worried about them finding in the first place.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
</div><p>Donald woke up and softly groaned, his body still incredibly sore from king Arthur’s hero training even three days after the fact. It was completely worth it however, as he felt stronger than ever and had re-sharpened the skills that had dulled ever since he had left S.H.U.S.H.; Felldrake didn’t stand a chance against them now.</p><p>The duck pushed himself out of bed and smacked his dry lips together, he didn’t know why but he had this odd feeling that today was going to be a good day; which only made him suspicious as such feelings normally meant that something really bad was supposed to happen in the near future, specifically to him. But he knew that he couldn’t just stay in bed to try and avoid it, the last time he did he nearly got crushed by a falling jet engine that crashed into his room, so instead he reached for the liquor bottle he kept stashed in his nightstand; only to discover that it was missing. Donald shrugged it off, it wasn’t a big deal, he’d just get a beer out of the fridge.</p><p>The duck stumbled downstairs in search of breakfast and booze shortly after, making his way into the kitchen and passing by all of his friends who were all currently sitting around the kitchen table with concerned expressions on their faces. Donald didn’t even notice they were there until he had his hands on the fridge door, the realization striking him rather suddenly.</p><p>“Oh, hey guys. What are you doing here? You usually don’t get up this early.” Donald asked, opening up the fridge.</p><p>“Xandra woke us all up for an ‘emergency team meeting’, she said it was super important.” Panchito replied.</p><p>“Why? Wait, what’s going on?”</p><p>“An intervention Donald.” April deadpanned.</p><p>Donald just stared at them with a confused look.</p><p>Xandra sighed. “Donald listen, you’ve come a long way since we first met last year; heck all of you have. You’ve proven time and time again that you’re worthy of your ancestor’s legacy but with our conflict against Felldrake escalating, we need everyone to be at their best for the inevitable final showdown.”</p><p>“What are you trying to say Xandra?” Asked Donald as he continued to search through the fridge.</p><p>“You have a drinking problem that we need to deal with.”</p><p>“Which is precisely why we’ve thrown out all the alcohol in the entire house.” José interjected.</p><p>The former sailor spun on his heel at that remark. “You did what?!”</p><p>“It’s for your own good mi amigo.” Panchito insisted.</p><p>“Why you-” Donald lunged for the rooster only to be immediately grabbed by Xandra who effortlessly held back his thrashing.</p><p>“Easy there sailor, we’re doing this all for you after all.” The eagle goddess explained. “Or would you rather keep spending your days at the bottom of a bottle?”</p><p>The duck’s struggles soon tapered off, his rage subsiding shortly after. “Alright fine, but did you really have to get rid of all of it?”</p><p>June nodded. “Yep, in situations like these it’s best to go full cold turkey. You need to dry yourself out Donald.”</p><p>“And I know just the place you can do it: Shangri La!” Xandra exclaimed, pulling out her atlas and displaying the aforementioned locale. “Hidden deep in the himalayas, that is where all problems are solved!”</p><p>“I dunno. That sounds a little fishy to me, can’t I just stay here and work things out with you guys?”</p><p>José placed a hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “Donal’, we really don’t want to force you to go. But we will if we have to, if for no other reason than to get you the help you need.”</p><p>Donald opened his mouth to object further, only for his father’s words to pop into his head.</p><p>‘if not for your sake than for the sake of our family, pick yourself up off the ground and start acting like the duck that we know that you are.’</p><p>“Okay, I’ll go. But I’m not doing any group therapy.” Donald replied.</p><p>“Great!” Cheered Xandra before snapping her fingers and teleporting herself and Donald away in a bright flash of light.</p><p>Once it dissipated, Donald was immediately hit with a gust of cold wind that felt like a hard slap in the face and it very quickly became apparent he was now standing smack dab in the middle of a mountain range in the middle of the snow storm.</p><p>“W-what t-the- H-how i-i-is this s-supposed to h-help me break m-my addiction?!” Donald shouted through chattering teeth</p><p>“You’ll see, just follow me.” The eagle goddess replied with a rather sly smile.</p><p>Donald did as he was told, trailing behind the goddess as she led him into a rather dark cave. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the change of scenery but at least it got him out of the harsh weather outside.</p><p>“This place sure looked a lot different in your book Xandra…” Donald muttered. “Xandra?”</p><p>Turning his gaze forwards, the duck realized that the goddess had all but vanished and left him completely alone inside of the cave. But before he could so much as even start to worry over the possibility that he had been led straight into some sort of trap, a roaring yeti popped up out of completely nowhere and scared the living daylights out of poor Donald. Fortunately for our hero, he was not brutally mauled by the beast, instead the creature cleared his throat and began to address him in a rather friendly tone.</p><p>“Sorry about that. Welcome to the Himalaya’s very own Shangri-la resort and spa.” The yeti chimed. “I’m Gary, your concierge, activities coordinator, and licensed behavioral therapist. You must be Donald Duck.”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s me.”</p><p>“Wonderful! We’ve been expecting you! Right this way.” Gary said, pushing aside a large boulder to reveal a beautiful, shining valley with various fun and relaxing activities scattered about; if Donald didn’t know better he would have assumed this was paradise.</p><p>‘Well, maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought; a spa treatment does sound pretty good with my aching muscles and all.’ Donald thought to himself. ‘As long as they don’t break out into a-’</p><p>“You’ve traveled veeeery far. We’ve got pools to play in, mud to lay in…” Gary sang.</p><p>“Oh no, not another musical number. I had enough of that in goblin jail…” Donald groaned.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
</div><p>Despite being on the receiving end of yet another, oddly well choreographed, musical number; Donald still had a wonderful time at Shangri-la. After constantly putting his life and danger and fighting off various mystical monsters and villains, it was nice to finally get a break and just unwind.</p><p>Beak and feather waxing, Tibetian yak massages, juice bars, yoga, steam baths, facials, and dozens upon dozens of other things that brought Donald’s stress levels to near non-existant levels for the first time in well...forever.</p><p>He was slightly unnerved by the way they seemed to emphasize the fact that he wouldn’t leave unless he was problem free but just assumed that was just their little slogan that they had built into the song. Either way those concerns, much like all the others, melted away as Donald simply kicked back and enjoyed shangri-la</p><p>“Ah, this is exactly what I needed. Just a good old fashioned vacation.” Donald exhaled as he sank deeper into the jacuzzi. “And here I thought today was going to be a bad day.”</p><p>“Mr.Duck?”</p><p>Donald looked up and saw Gary standing over him, clipboard in hand.</p><p>“Sorry to interrupt, but it’s time for your cognitive behavioral therapy session.”</p><p>“Can’t it wait just five more minutes?” Donald replied. “</p><p>“Unfortunately your friend Xandra specified that your therapy sessions are MANDATORY during your stay here at Shangri-la. So you’ll have to get going now.”</p><p>Donald sighed, all good things must come to an end he supposed. “Alright, alright just give me a sec-”</p><p>The duck was cut off by a sudden sharp pain that suddenly reverberated throughout his entire body, as if someone had struck at his very soul, causing him to double over in pain and fall to his knees. A stark sense of dread washing over him as he could only make the logical assumption that something had gone horribly wrong back in New Quackmore and that everyone he cared about was in grave danger.</p><p>“Mr.Duck? Are you alright?” Gary asked with genuine concern.</p><p>Donald couldn’t give an honest answer, he just kept wheezing through the pain as he felt like every nerve ending in his body suddenly lit up all at once and just as quickly turned off again. He didn’t know what just happened or why it happened, all he knew was that he had to get home as soon as possible.</p><p>“N-No.” Donald stuttered out, finally regaining his ability to speak. “Everything is not alright, I need to get out of here.”</p><p>Donald tried to sprint for the exit, only for Gary to grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him up until he was eye level with the yeti.</p><p>“Ah, Ah, Ah. You can’t leave, not until all your problems have been resolved and if I’m not mistaken your alcohol addiction has not been resolved yet.”</p><p>“What?!”</p><p>“You signed the contract.” Gary explained, eyes glowing an eerie yellow. “You agreed to remain here until you were completely problem free.”</p><p>“Forget contracts! Forget about problem solving! My friends are in danger and they need my help!” Donald screamed as he uselessly thrashed about in the yeti’s grip.</p><p>Gary was not even the least bit moved by his protests as he quickly tossed the duck over to two other yetis who quickly grabbed ahold of his arms and kept him restrained.</p><p>“Please escort Mr.Duck to the pool of self reflection please.” Gary instructed his compatriots.</p><p>The yetis nodded and dragged a still struggling Donald away from the scene, after a short walk through the resort they came upon a medium sized building and tossed Donald inside, being sure to shut the door behind him and lock it. tossed him into a small chamber with a large pool of shallow, reflective water in the center of it before shutting the door behind him.</p><p>The duck huffed, knowing that they were serious about keeping him prisoner until he had kicked his addiction, Donald decided to simply indulge them and get this whole ‘reflecting pool’ bit over with; the sooner he solved his problems the sooner he could get out of here and help the Three Caballeros.</p><p>Taking the time to look around the room, Donald noticed that he was inside of a rather spacious chamber made up of nothing but pure white marble with a glass ceiling overhead serving as the only light source, in the center of the room was a large pool of clear, shallow water that perfectly reflected the sky that shone through the windows above. It didn’t take the duck long to realize that this must have been the pool of self reflection Gary was talking about, although he couldn’t quite figure out what he was supposed to do in here.</p><p>“You must reflect on the source of your addictions.” Gary’s voice suddenly boomed from an intercom. <b>“Or they will destroy you!”</b></p><p>Donald walked over to the pool and gazed into it, seeing nothing more than his reflection staring back at him; at least until it started to change. Donald’s form in the water started shifting into something far more monstrous: his feathers turned dark green, his eyes became a sickly yellow with slitted pupils, his beak growing a set of razor sharp fangs, and his outfit changing from sky blue to a deep purple. It was an unnerving sight to say the least.</p><p>It only got even more unnerving when the corrupted reflection suddenly burst forth from the pool and punched Donald right in the face.</p><p>“What the-” Donald shouted in surprise only to get another punch to the face for his troubles, the second hit knocking him down.</p><p>“Well now, this is an interesting experience.” Donald’s doppleganger cackled.</p><p>“Who...who are you?!”</p><p>“Me?” the clone said. “I am the truth Donald, your truth. All of the things you realized after you lost Kay: how you’re worthless, weak, and just another stain upon the world.”</p><p>“A stain? A STAIN?” Donald shouted as he hopped back to his feet. “I’ll show you a stain once I’m done turning you into one!”</p><p>Donald threw a hard punch into evil Donald’s face, only for it to pass harmlessly through the creature’s form as if he was punching a pillar of water.</p><p>The evil duck smiled and casually back handed his good counterpart, sending him sprawling once more.</p><p>“See? I’m right, you are pathetic. You can’t even beat me.”</p><p>Donald shook off the blow and charged at the duplicate, he wasn’t about to just lay down and let this guy walk all over him. Sadly, his efforts didn’t amount to much as the clone seemed to know all of his fighting tactics and effortlessly countered everything Donald threw at it; even when Donald did land a hit, his blows had no effect at all. This wasn’t a fight, it was an exercise in futility and the fact that his evil twin seemed to be getting bigger and stronger the longer the fight went on wasn’t helping matters.</p><p>“Poor pitiful Donald Duck.” mocked the green duck, landing a hard uppercut. “The one who can never get a break, the one who gets all the bad luck and only brings down pain and misfortune on everyone around him.”</p><p>Donald swung again only to be thrown to the ground once more.</p><p>“You’re a parasite Donald, a worthless leech who constantly makes his own anger and self loathing everyone else’s problem.”</p><p>The doppelganger landed a roundhouse kick to Donald’s side.</p><p>“The smart ones run away while the ones that stay get dragged down with you, just like Kay did. She had a bright life ahead of her and now she’s gone because of you.”</p><p>Donald moved to tackle his tormenter but merely passed straight through him and crashed to the ground.</p><p>“I really can’t even understand why the friends you have now are even wasting their time on you, they should have figured out that you’re a lost cause that is beyond fixing and attempting to do so will only serve to disappoint them.” The clone hissed. “Even now you’re already letting them down, they’re probably fighting for their lives against Felldrake as we speak and instead of fighting alongside them you’re here, fruitlessly trying to prove you have some semblance of worth. Pathetic.”</p><p>The green duck put a foot on Donald’s back and forced him to the ground.</p><p>“You are nothing Donald Duck. The only purpose you serve is to exist at the bottom of a bottle, isolated from the people that mistakenly think they could save you from yourself…”</p><p>Donald tried to get up again but found the weight of his evil clone, who now towered over him at almost triple his height, too much to bear and he was forced to lie on the floor. But the worst thing wasn’t the fact that he was being practically crushed beneath this monster’s heel, it was the fact that the more he thought about it the more he started to think that maybe the guy was right. Maybe he really was worthless, maybe he did just ruin the lives of others, maybe he was better off alone; Donald let out a defeated sigh and lied his head back down on the floor, closing his eyes to try and fight off the tears welling up in them.</p><p>“That’s it, you know I’m right. Just crawl back into your bottle and give into the inevitable, it’s not like anybody will miss you when you’re gone.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes suddenly snapped open, his thoughts of surrender momentarily forgotten as several important memories started to flash through his mind.</p><p>
  <em>‘We’ll always be there for you Donald. Especially me.’ said Panchito</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘You’re our friend Donald, nothing will ever change that.’ Said Mickey.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘We’re proud of you son, we always have and we always will be.’ Said Hortense</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘We’re a team donnie! We stick together through thick and thin.’ Said Della</em>
</p><p>“No, that’s...that’s not true.” Donald muttered as he lifted his head. “And if that isn’t true...can any of it be true?”</p><p>The doppelganger faltered for a brief moment, shrinking slightly, but that was all it took for Donald to gain the upper hand and push him off so that he could get back to his feet.</p><p>“You’re wrong, I’m not worthless! I’m not useless! And I’m not a parasite!” Donald declared.</p><p>The clone grit his teeth and swung at Donald again, only this time the fist simply splashed harmlessly against the duck’s face.</p><p>Donald grinned. “I’ve saved countless lives, not to mention the whole world! I’m the strongest guy I know and I’ve fought my way through everything the world could throw at me and then some! I didn’t give up then and I don’t plan to start now! I’ve been a great hero and an even better friend!”</p><p>His self resolve grew as his evil twin shrank, the latter now swinging wildly at Donald to little effect. The duck had completely turned the tables.</p><p>“And you know what else? A lot of people would agree with me! Like Panchito and José, I kept pushing them away but they still stuck by me through thick and thin not because fate forced us together but because they wanted to be my friend...and maybe more! Like Xandra who saw the potential in me as a hero and brought it to bear! Like April, May, and June who look up to me like a father!”</p><p>Donald’s clone now stood at eye level with his good counterpart.</p><p>“Like Mickey and Goofy! They never quit on me even after I cut them out of my life, who traveled all the way to New Quackmore just to make sure I was safe and pulled me back to my feet when I was down!”</p><p>The doppelganger was rapidly shrinking down, his expression becoming more scared and desperate as he kept tossing out worthless blows.</p><p>“Like my family! My parents who have been watching over me all my life and are darn proud of who I am and what I’ve done! Scrooge and Della, who kept searching for me after I disappeared just so they could see me again and bring me back home! All of them care about me and I’m grateful to have every last one of them in my life!”</p><p>At this point the clone had shrunken down to the size of a mouse, complete with a comically squeaky voice to match. “WHAT ABOUT KAY?! HUH TOUGH GUY?!</p><p>“I did my best to keep her safe, while it wasn’t enough in the end she was the one to make the choice to sacrifice herself to save the world; her disappearance wasn’t my fault and I shouldn’t let it dominate my life anymore. Just like how I can’t let you dominate me anymore.” Donald said with confidence flowing through his words.</p><p>“NO! YOU’RE TRASH, WORTHLESS GARBAGE THAT NEEDS TO BE BLASTED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!”</p><p>Donald just rolled his eyes and calmly lifted up one of his legs. “Oh shut up.”</p><p>The doppelganger let out a terrified squeak right before Donald brough his foot down and squashed the little freak flat. As he did so, the duck felt like a massive emotional weight had been lifted off of his shoulders and every bit of self doubt and loathing he gathered over the past two years had dissolved right before his eyes; it felt utterly amazing, like he could take on the world.</p><p>His blissful state was soon interrupted by the sound of the chamber door opening behind him, Gary plodding in shortly after.</p><p>“Well done Donald! You have conquered your inner demons, how about a celebratory drink?” The yeti exclaimed, holding out a wine glass on a tray.</p><p>Donald reached for the glass before pausing for a brief moment and retracting his hand, the idea of alcohol didn’t seem as appealing as it used to. “No thanks, I think I’ll just stick with soda and juice from now on.”</p><p>Gary gave out a happy chuckle as he tossed the tray over his shoulder with a loud crash. “Good answer. Seeing as you have managed to solve all of your problems you are now free to leave shangri-la, right this way please.”</p><p>Donald wordlessly complied, still riding the high of freeing himself from his long standing emotional burdens. He wasn’t going to say that everything was going to be perfect for him, the world rarely worked that way for him, but he knew that things were certainly going to be a lot easier from here on out.</p><p>“Here we are, this should take you right home.” Gary stated, motioning to a log flume. “Please complete our satisfaction survey and mention, by name, anyone who’s made your stay especially pleasant. Won’t you?”</p><p>“Sure, why not? Thanks again for everything!” Donald exclaimed as he climbed onto the ride.</p><p>“No trouble at all Mr.Duck, now go forth and fulfill your destiny!”</p><p>Donald waved goodbye to the yetis with a smile on his face as the log flume slowly crawled it’s way into the sunset, only for his expression to turn into one of horror when the ride suddenly went off a steep drop that shot him down into the clouds. He screamed at the sudden rush of wind as he plummeted out of the sky, the cover of the clouds blinding him to what was likely the rapidly approaching ground, until a wave of water splashed over him and he felt the log slam into something, bringing it to a sudden halt.</p><p>Shaking off the whiplash, Donald quickly realized that he was now sitting in the cabana’s bathroom. He decided not to question the logic in how he ended up here after falling from the top of a mountain, chalking it up to magic, as there were more pressing matters at hand; namely, what the heck his friends had gotten himself into while he was gone.</p><p>The duck pushed his way out of the bathroom to see that Ari and the girls were rushing around in a complete panic, hurriedly boarding up the doors and windows while Xandra, José, and Panchito were nowhere to be seen.</p><p>“Hurry up! We need to fortify this place as soon as we can, we don’t know if the cabs can pull this off without Donald! And will someone find my hammer?!” June shouted.</p><p>Donald spied the tool sitting on a nearby bookshelf and walked it over to June.</p><p>“Here ya go.”</p><p>“Thanks Donald.” June replied only for her to stop and spin on her heel when she realized who she was talking to. “DONALD?!”</p><p>“Hey June what’s- OOF!” Donald was interrupted mid sentence by June slamming into him and wrapping her arms around the former sailor in a tight hug with her sisters doing much of the same.</p><p>“YOU’RE BACK!” The girls cheered in unison.</p><p>Donald smiled and returned the hug, squeezing them all against his body and enjoying the physical contact.</p><p>“Nice to see you all again too. Now would you mind getting me up to speed? What’s going on? Where is everybody?” The duck asked.</p><p>“Oh man, things went so wrong so fast.” May whimpered.</p><p>“After you left for Shangri-La, we were just up to our usual stuff: Panchito and José were having a bread fight, Ari was having a tea party with the bear, and we were cleaning up the treasure chamber.” April explained. “While we were down there we noticed that the caballeros’ amulets were missing and everyone figured out that Felldrake had somehow stolen them.”</p><p>“Then we built a magic cannon together, blew a hole in the mystic barrier surrounding Sheldgoose manor, and Xandra, Panchito, and José rushed inside and told us to stay behind while they took on Felldrake.” June finished. “Of course the portal opening up in the sky doesn’t bode well for their chances.</p><p>Out of curiosity, Donald peeked through the cracks in the boarded up window and saw that a dark and malevolent looking portal with scary lightning spewing forth from it was indeed hanging in the sky.</p><p>Donald sighed. “Wow, I leave you all alone for a day and everything falls apart. Alright, where are the others now?”</p><p>“Probably fighting Sheldgoose in his secret basement lair.”</p><p>“Sheldgoose has a secret basement lair? Where?”</p><p>“Down the hall from his office in the left wing, it’s a big hole in the floor with a spiral staircase, you can’t possibly miss it.” Said April. “We found it after we broke into his house last month.”</p><p>“You broke into his- nevermind, we’ll talk about that later. Right now I’ve got to suit up and save the world!” Donald declared, heading down into the treasure chamber.</p><p>The girls looked at each other with surprise, likely because Donald was taking this far better than they expected and June ended up confronting him about it.</p><p>“Uh Donald? You feeling okay?” Asked the yellow dressed duck.</p><p>Donald plopped a helmet onto his head. “Oh I’m better than okay, I feel like my head’s finally clear for the first time in years. Fighting the living personification of my own insecurities worked wonders for me.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it.” Donald said, putting a comforting hand onto June’s shoulder. “Your uncle Donald will make sure everything’s gonna be fine.”</p><p>May smiled. “So you’ve got a plan?”</p><p>“Not really.” Donald replied. “I figured I just get the guys their weapons and armor and just make the rest up as I went from there, improv is where I do my best work.”</p><p>“And what are we supposed to do?”</p><p>“Stay here, keep each other safe, and hope for the best.” Donald asserted as he gave each of the triplets a goodbye hug.</p><p>April began to tear up. “You had better come back. We’ll never forgive you if you die again.”</p><p>“Aw April, don’t make me cry. I can’t swing a sword with tears in my eyes.”</p><p>After one final hug Donald grabbed the bag full of his friends’ armor and raced outside where the situation had only begun to escalate further, the portal had grown in size and was blowing a harsh wind through the campus like a raging storm. The locals of the institute, staff and student alike, were now running around outside in an utter panic at the sight but Donald paid them no mind; he had a job to do and couldn’t afford any distractions. Although the crusader did pause for a few moments when he saw that a massive gaping hole had been blown clean through the front entrance of the manor and, call him crazy, he could have sworn that he could see Scrooge’s money bin in the distance with an equally large hole inside of it but he blew it off.</p><p>‘Stay focused! Now is not the time Donald!’ the duck internally scolded himself as he ran into the manor, stepping over the unconscious guards that were scattered in the foyer.</p><p>Using the girls’ directions, it didn’t take Donald very long to find the secret entrance they were talking about; after all it literally was just a big hole in the floor with a spiral staircase. However, the duck only managed to make it down two steps before he was blinded by a bright flash of purple light that seemed to engulf the entire building before dissipating shortly after.</p><p>Donald rubbed his eyes and tried to recover from it. “I don’t know what that was, but it couldn’t have been anything good. I’d better hurry”</p><p>And hurry he did, leaping down the stairs, clearing several steps with every bound until he came to the first chamber in Sheldgoose’s hidden basement. As luck would have had it, all of his friends were already gathered there who seemed similarly confused about the bright flash that had just occurred.</p><p>“What was that bright flash?” Asked José</p><p>“It must have been Felldrake, he’s probably regenerating his form as we speak! Come on, let’s go!” Xandra exclaimed</p><p>“You’re not going anywhere!” Donald shouted, stepping into the chamber and drawing the full attention of his friends. “Not without me!”</p><p>“DONALD?!” the trio said in surprise.</p><p>“In the feathers, I’m fresh out of Shangri-la and ready to save the day.” the duck declared, tossing the bag he brought with him at the feet of his fellow caballeros, the armor within spilling out upon impact.</p><p>José smiled “That’s what the three Caballeros were missing! The third caballero!”</p><p>“Glad you could join us Donald Duck!” the eagle goddess cheered.</p><p>“Wouldn’t miss this for the world Xandra, now everybody suit up! We’ve got work to do!”</p><p>“Wow.” Panchito remarked. “Somebody’s in a good mood.”</p><p>Donald shrugged in response. “What can I say? I feel like my old self again.”</p><p>Within minutes the Caballeros had slipped into their armor, drawn their weapons, and were all ready to go only for Panchito to stop them.</p><p>“Hang on, if we’re gonna save the world we need a good battle cry before we rush towards certain death!” The rooster announced.</p><p>“Like what?” Donald replied.</p><p>José snapped his fingers. “How about...Squawk, crow, quack. I’ve got your back!”</p><p>The two birds stared at their parrot friend for a brief moment, with Panchito being the first one to reply.</p><p>“That’s terrible, I love it!”</p><p>“Okay then, on three.” Said Donald. “One, two, THREE!”</p><p>“SQUAWK, CROW, QUACK, I’VE GOT YOUR BACK!”</p><p>Xandra rolled her eyes. “You guys are such dorks.”</p><p>“Yeah but these dorks are about to save the world! Charge!” Yelled Donald.</p><p>The four of them rushed forth, heading deeper into the catacombs that lied under Sheldgoose manor, ready to face whatever trials laid ahead.</p><p>They did not have to wait long, soon after they charged down the first hallway, the Caballeros found themselves facing down Baron Von Sheldgoose who was now sporting a new set of magical powers courtesy of lord Felldrake, which included the ability to summon portals to various magical points around the world and throw whatever nasty creatures lay there. Luckily for our heroes, granting such an ability required Felldrake to disrupt the forces of light and dark which allowed Xandra to do the exact same thing and pop up a portal of her own.</p><p>What followed next might as well have been a ‘greatest hits’ run of the past year Donald’s spent working with the three caballeros: Moon bots, Roman gods, Lava lizards, Goblins, Yokai, King Arthur, the Sheldgoose family, the ghosts of mount rushmore, giant termites, the Minotaur, the dragon, the Moai commander, and everyone in between. All the forces of good and evil had shown up for one last epic showdown to determine the fate of the universe itself.</p><p>Sadly, even with all of their reinforcements balancing out the odds it still wasn’t enough. By the time they finally reached the summoning chamber where Felldrake was hiding, he had managed to fully reform himself into his demonic body and had the full power of their magical amulets behind him.</p><p><b>“Well hello Caballeros! It’s been centuries!”</b> Felldrake boomed. <b>“You’ve arrived just in time to witness me usher in a new age of darkness!”</b></p><p>The sorcerer let out an evil laugh before exploding forth in a giant wave of magic that once again engulfed the entire room, only this time Donald felt the ground beneath him fall away and a harsh wind blow him back. When he finally managed to regain his senses, he despaired at the sight he beheld.</p><p>The world had been shattered, the remaining pieces drifted through a massive void with Felldrake at the center of it all still cackling.</p><p>“What happened?” José asked.</p><p>“Where are we?” Panchito added.</p><p>“Who cares? Let’s go boys!” Donald exclaimed, picking up his sword. “ATTACK!”</p><p>The latin birds let out similar battle cries and followed their friend straight towards the conflict.</p><p>They held their own at first, José landing a few good hits against Felldrake’s hands and Panchito pole vaulting onto the purple demon’s belly only to be knocked away and narrowly rescued by Donald. But the tide quickly turned against them when Felldrake sent out a massive wave of magical energy that sent them all flying through the void, landing on a particularly large piece of earth with a loud slam and a slight crunch; Donald struggling to breath as the fall had practically knocked the wind out of him. None of them managed to recover, as Felldrake promptly teleported before them and brought a large set of claws right down upon them.</p><p>If Xandra hadn’t swooped in and snatched them out of harm’s way, they would have been skewered right then and there.</p><p>“You guys okay?” asked the eagle goddess.</p><p>Before any of them could give a proper reply, Felldrake landed a devastating punch that knocked them to yet another piece of debris; this time with a far more audible crunch than before.</p><p>Donald tried to scramble back to his feet but the sharp pain that ran from the bottom of his leg, all the way up to his thigh let him know that he had definitely broken something in the fall; he couldn’t even stand up anymore and to make matters worse, José and Panchito seemed to be in the same boat as they were both groaning in pain and clutching their limbs.</p><p>The duck’s head darted upwards, hoping to see Xandra doing better than they were. But it was all for naught, as the goddess was promptly swatted aside by the evil sorcerer as if she was a meddlesome insect. As much as Donald hated to admit it they were fighting a losing battle here and for once he couldn’t see a way out of it, especially not with his leg throbbing in pain.</p><p>“What do I do now?” Donald said.</p><p>“Now? You die!”</p><p>Donald turned around to see Sheldgoose sitting on his and Felldrake’s mount, hands glowing with dark energy that was about to be fired right at the defenseless Caballeros.</p><p>“I’ve waited a long time to do this Caballeros, you’ve been a thorn in my side since the day you arrived at the New Quackmore institute, it’s time to-” The baron was cut off mid sentence by a high velocity tennis ball beaning him in the face.</p><p>“What the- where did that come from?”</p><p>“Get away from them!” Shouted a decidedly female voice.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, Donald spotted June approaching the goose with some kind of modified air cannon that shot out tennis balls (likely one of her many inventions) and kept firing upon him.</p><p>“You insolent little-”</p><p>“Coming through dude!” Another voice shouted, interrupting Sheldgoose for the second time.</p><p>The aristocrat had no time to react at all as May flew in from nowhere and knocked him right off the beast he was riding with a swipe of a hockey stick.</p><p>“May? June? I thought I told you girls to-”</p><p>June turned around and reloaded her gun. “We’re a team, Donald! We watch each others’ backs!”</p><p>“Yeah!” May sounded off in agreement. “Did you really think we were gonna sit out the final battle for the fate of the world? Fat chance!”</p><p>The two girls then turned back towards their foe and charged, the ducks quickly overwhelming both of Felldrake’s lackeys. As they did so, Donald quickly realized something very important.</p><p>‘Wait, if May and June are there. Where’s April?’</p><p>His question was answered promptly by the aforementioned duck approaching the fallen trio from behind some nearby rubble. Unlike her sister’s confident expressions, April was clearly terrified out of her mind by recent developments and the fact that the guys she looked up to were laying broken on the ground certainly wasn’t helping.</p><p>“Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no!” April exclaimed, fretting over each of them. “That is definitely a broken leg, there’s no way you can fight with that.”</p><p>“Hey, I’ve survived worse. I just need to- GAH!” Donald let out a cry of pain when he tried to get to his feet a second time, his leg helpfully reminding him that he was in no shape to do so.</p><p>“This is bad, really bad. Without you, Felldrake has us beat; we need to get you back up and fast.”</p><p>“It’s a shame we don’t have any healing potions or magic with us right now, that would probably be handy.” Panchito remarked.</p><p>April’s head suddenly darted upwards, an idea seemingly popping into the young duck’s mind. “Wait a second...Maybe we do!”</p><p>The brainiac quickly took off in another direction and as Donald’s gaze followed her retreat, he suddenly noticed the glowing fountain that seemed to be filled with some kind of mystical water only a couple yards away from where they had fallen.</p><p>‘How did I not notice that?’ Donald internally remarked as April collected some of the water in the fountain with a plastic bottle.</p><p>“Okay here, drink- whoops!”</p><p>April only made it about five feet before tripping over a rock, which sent the full bottle flying out of her hands and it’s contents splashing all over Donald. Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick as Donald felt a rush of energy coursing through his body like electricity; the pain in his leg dissolving as he felt his body completely heal the wound in seconds, along with all the exhaustion he had built up during this fight. Donald sprung to his feet in seconds and struck a pose, his entire body glowing with blue energy.</p><p>“Woo-woo! Now that really puts some pep in your step!” Donald exclaimed.</p><p>Seeing the positive effect it had on the leader of the Caballeros, April quickly gathered up two more bottles of the magical water and splashed it on José and Panchito who similarly popped back up, practically good as new and glowing with green and red energy respectively. The trio could literally feel the power of the fountain coursing through their veins.</p><p>“Well my friends, shall we?” Asked José with a cheeky smile.</p><p>Panchito nodded. “We shall.”</p><p>“Hang on.” April said, handing them a fourth bottle. “For the road, just in case you need it.”</p><p>“Thanks April. Now then, let’s go get him!”</p><p>The Three Caballeros exploded forth from the platform, the power provided by the fountain had elevated their physical abilities tenfold and allowed them to practically fly through the void.</p><p>They rushed towards Felldrake like cannonballs and with a swing of his sword, José lopped off one of the demon’s hands with Panchito taking the other shortly after. Felldrake roared in pain right as Donald swooped in and saved Xandra along with her atlas from the sorcerer’s clutches.</p><p>“You okay?” Asked the crusader in blue</p><p>“I think so, thanks Donald.” Xandra replied before noticing their powered up forms. “Woah, what happened to you guys?”</p><p>“We just got splashed with some magic water.” Panchito said.</p><p>“That explains nothing.”</p><p>Right then, a bolt of purple lighting struck the area between Xandra and the Caballeros. When they looked up, they saw Felldrake had recovered from the previous blows and was now advancing on them.</p><p>“Alright Caballeros! Let’s- ow!” Xandra cried, taking a knee as a painful crack echoed from her form.</p><p>Eyeing the spare bottle that April had given them, Donald snatched it off of his belt and poured it over Xandra. The eagle goddess quickly stood back up and started glowing yellow, matching the boys red, green, and blue.</p><p>“This’ll do. Now let’s get busy!”</p><p>The quartet flung themselves at Felldrake, doing far more damage to the evil sorcerer than last time thanks to their new superpowered forms. Each of them slicing, stabbing, and cutting through the demon’s body, completely shredding him as he cried out in pain and fruitlessly attempted to stop them.</p><p>After cutting off a few of Felldrake’s horns, Donald spied something drifting through the cosmos: a very familiar looking golden staff.</p><p>“Look! It’s Felldrake’s staff.” the duck exclaimed.</p><p>“We’ve got the power of our ancestors, we can use it to re-imprison him!” José inferred.</p><p>“Sounds like a plan to me!” Panchito cheered.</p><p>The trio quickly got into position, channeled their new found energy into their weapons, and cast it forth towards Felldrake who immediately started howling in pain as his essence was slowly sucked back into the staff that had imprisoned him for so many centuries.</p><p><b>“SHELDGOOSE! DO SOMETHING! DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN!!”</b> Felldrake roared.</p><p>“I’ll save you lord Felldrake!” exclaimed Sheldgoose, sporting numerous bruises as he floated his way over towards the staff. “You’ll never be trapped in this staff again!”</p><p>The goose promptly snapped the staff over his knee and to everyone’s surprise, there was a brief explosion of light that blew everyone back and for several moments there was nothing but silence.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
</div><p>Donald blinked a few times to clear up his vision alongside his ringing ears, once his eyes were no longer clouded up with white light he noticed that the Caballeros, Xandra, and the triplets found themselves back on terra firma; the world set right back to the way it was as if the last hour or so had never even occurred in the first place.</p><p>“We won? We won!” cheered Xandra, as the Caballeros gave off their own cheers of victory along with everyone else in the square.</p><p>“Wow, saving the world and it’s only freshman year? Man did we pick the right college.” June remarked.</p><p>“Wait.” Donald said as he looked at his nearby surroundings. “Where’s-”</p><p>The duck was cut off as a purple blur slammed into him and knocked him to the ground, sending him skidding several feet into the grass.</p><p>Once he regained his senses, he found that Sheldgoose was currently lying motionless on top of him, still decked out in the cloak he was wearing earlier. Donald grit his teeth and moved to push the villain off of him, only to come face to face with a scorched skull.</p><p>The former sailor screamed as he threw the well done corpse off of him, the charred bones clattering across Sheldgoose square.</p><p>“He’s...he’s dead!” May stuttered as she rushed over to the scene with the rest of the crowd.</p><p>“Of course, when Sheldgoose broke Felldrake’s staff it must have resulted in a massive magical backlash that wound up destroying both of them.” Xandra explained.</p><p>That’s about when Eugenia decided to interject. “Well seeing as the current president of the New Quackmore institute is now deceased, I hereby name myself the acting president of the New Quackmore institute!”</p><p>Donald could only roll his eyes at the sheer gall of the peacock, sure he had hated Sheldgoose but she wasted absolutely no time in taking advantage of his death to serve her own ends.</p><p>“Not quite miss Ferdinand.” April grinned as she pulled out an old, taped together doctrine. “According to the founder’s doctrine of the New Quackmore institute. Should a Sheldgoose ever lose their presidency or die without naming an heir, said presidency goes to a Coot or their closest relative which would be Donald Fontleroy Duck!”</p><p>Xandra snorted. “Your middle name is Fontleroy?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Donald replied before approaching April. “Where did you even get that?”</p><p>“Oh, I swiped the torn up pieces from Felldrake’s manor when we raided it, I’ve been working on it in my free time ever since.” Explained the purple duck only to have the document snatched out of her hands.</p><p>“Let me see that document!” The peacock growled only to have it snatched from her in turn by a familiar face: the executor to Clinton Coot’s will</p><p>“I, Debbie Affidavit esquire, hereby declare Donald Fontleroy Duck, the acting president of the New Quackmore institute until a proper election is held.” the dog declared.</p><p>Eugenia thrust a finger at Donald. “We’ll see who wins that presidency.”</p><p>At this point Donald’s beak might as well have fallen off with how far his jaw has dropped in utter shock.</p><p>“M-me? President?!” The duck stuttered in disbelief.</p><p>“Oh, as acting president, you get the manor too.” Said Debbie, pulling out the keys to the aforementioned home.</p><p>“WHAT?!” Exclaimed Donald, José, Panchito, and Xandra.</p><p>Donald could only stare as the dog placed the keys into his hand, still unable to believe his luck, good things like this NEVER happened to him.</p><p>“Well how about that, you’ve got a new job and a new house amigo!” Panchito exclaimed, wrapping Donald into a congratulatory hug.</p><p>“Not to mention the best friends a guy could ever ask for.” Donald beamed. “Come on everybody, let’s check out our new place!”</p><p>May gasped. “I call the master bedroom!”</p><p>“No way!” June asserted</p><p>“I’ll race you to it!” April said before breaking out into a sprint alongside her sisters.</p><p>Xandra and the Caballeros followed the girls into the manor shortly after and looked around in awe at their new home with glistening floors and towering ceilings.</p><p>“I have to say, this is certainly a step up from the cabana.” Xandra remarked.</p><p>Donald was about to check some of the upstairs areas that he didn’t get to see during his frantic run in earlier, only to be stopped when José placed a hand upon his shoulder.</p><p>“Donal’ a moment please?” The parrot said with concern laced into his tone.</p><p>Donald sat down on the foyer stairs. “Sure, what’s up?”</p><p>“Well, Panchito and I didn’t get the chance to ask you this earlier due to the circumstances but...are you feeling better now?”</p><p>“Oh yeah, much better.” Donald said with a nod. “I think I’ve finally managed to come to terms with Kay’s disappearance, I probably will need a bit more time to move on from her completely, but at least now I’ve managed to pull myself back together again. I’ll be just fine from here on out.”</p><p>The parrot’s concern melted away into a wide smile and he brought Donald into a hug. “Glad to hear it my friend, I’m happy for you.”</p><p>“Group hug, bring it in guys!” Panchito exclaimed, snuggling in between the two.</p><p>“Well as fun as this day has been, I think we’ve earned ourselves a little bit of a break. I for one am going to collapse onto the first bed I find and take a long nap.” The duck stated with a yawn.</p><p>“Now that you mention it, a nap does sound good right about now; mind if we join you?”</p><p>“As long as you keep your clothes on guys.”</p><p>Both birds let out a hearty laugh at the quip. “Fair enough Donald, fair enough.”</p><p>As they made their way upstairs in search of sleeping arrangements, Donald took in a deep breath and let out a happy sigh.</p><p>Today turned out to be a great day after all and, by the looks of things, many more like it were to follow.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
</div><p>“Wow. what an ending! Fighting for the fate of the cosmos itself, just when I think uncle Donald can’t get any more awesome he just keeps surprising us!” Dewey exclaimed.</p><p>“That still doesn’t explain how the Three Caballeros became a band though.” Louie remarked.</p><p>Huey shrugged. “Maybe they formed up later after they retired from being heroes, with Felldrake gone they probably disbanded the team altogether but stayed as friends.”</p><p>“I’m just upset that Donald never dated Panchito or José, I had my shipping chart ready and everything!” Webby groaned.</p><p>“Well in any case, I don’t think we’re quite done with uncle Donald’s mysterious past just yet. There’s still a lot of pages left in this book.” Huey said, flipping the pages for emphasis.</p><p>“Same time tomorrow night guys?”</p><p>“You know it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and so the three caballeros arc comes to a close, Donald has finally managed to overcome his past traumas and get himself back to a good mental state while also getting his life back on track. His friends and family certainly set him on the right path but it took him literally confronting the worst parts of himself to finally come to terms with what happened and stop blaming himself.</p><p>if you're wondering why I decided to kill off Felldrake and Sheldgoose (and they are most DEFINATELY dead by the way), it's primarily because I didn't want to leave any loose ends when resolving this arc. Keep in mind that the Caballeros didn't kill them, Sheldgoose basically offed himself and his master. </p><p>anyways, the long awaited Kingdom Hearts arc is going to begin next chapter. I hope you'll all like what I've got in store for that part of Donald's life.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. guys weekend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Just our favorite trio (Donald, Mickey, and Goofy) hanging out over the weekend, where absolutely nothing goes wrong at all.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“A manor, he had a whole manor to himself and he never even told us!” Louie complained as he walked down one of the many hallways of Mcduck manor with his older brother. “We could have grown up there instead of in the houseboat!”</p><p>“What’s wrong with the houseboat?! Sure it breaks down on a regular basis and it’s cramped and dirty but it’s still our home! Think off all the good times we had together on that boat!” Huey shot back.</p><p>“But we probably could have had even better times in a multi million dollar manor!”</p><p>Huey shook his head, he could see that there was no arguing with Louie on this one even though Uncle Donald probably had very good reasons for keeping the existence of Sheldgoose manor a secret from them just like everything else...he hoped.</p><p>The duo soon pushed through the door to Webby’s room, their usual meeting place to read Donald’s biography.</p><p>“Hey guys. Ready to dive back in?” Webby chimed.</p><p>The red and green triplets nodded. “Yep, where did we leave off?”</p><p>“I think we were right after Donald and his friends defeated Sheldgoose.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>It had been three weeks since they had finally finished the work of their ancestors by destroying Felldrake once and for all and the Caballeros along with the triplets had finally managed to get all settled into their new home. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable move, the manor did largely lack the warmth and familiarity of the cabana but they came to adjust simply because of the numerous benefits that came with living in the manor ranging from entertainment centers to ridiculously huge bedrooms to golden toilets (why Sheldgoose needed a golden toilet was beyond Donald.), they had certainly moved up in the world and they planned on milking it for all it was worth. Of course it wasn’t all good, they were down a teammate.</p><p>Xandra had left last week, not permanently mind you, with Felldrake gone and the mystical world having stabilized without his influence she decided that now would be the best time to take a long overdue vacation, she had heard mount olympus was nice this time of year and soon departed but promised to immediately call the caballeros if anything came up. With their divine friend gone, the lives of the three Caballeros soon descended into sort of a calm lull where they didn’t have to risk bodily and mental harm on a bi-weekly basis to save the world; it was boring sure but this sort of peace was what heroes like them strove to accomplish, at least Donald had finally gotten to pursue his childhood dream of being in a band.</p><p>It had been nothing more than a joke at first, Panchito bringing it up during one of their ping pong tournaments. How José’s trumpet skills, Panchito on guitar, Donald on bass, and with all three of them singing in unison they could start up their own band; it took them about five minutes for them to stop laughing over it, but the idea stuck in their heads long after the fact. After chewing upon the thought of a band for a while, the trio decided to throw caution into the wind and have a bit of a jam session together just to see how they sounded. Apparently they sounded pretty good, at least once the birds stopped squabbling on what they should play, and thus Donald’s first real band ‘the Three Caballeros’ was born; much to the triplets’ displeasure.</p><p>For awhile that was Donald’s life, just enjoying his newfound fortune (with all the treasure they had gathered during their adventures, money was no longer a concern for any of them) and hanging out with this weird, makeshift family he had amassed; the most significant thing that had happened was that Panchito and José had announced they had become and official couple together with an open invitation for a certain sailor duck to join in their relationship should the mood ever strike him, much to Donald’s embarrassment. But for the most part it was smooth sailing for all of them, at least until his latin friends announced that they were heading out to see Panchito’s family while the girls let it slip they were doing the same thing with their own family which would have left Donald alone in the manor for the next four days; although he didn’t mind it that much.</p><p>“You’re sure you don’t want to come with us mi amigo?” Panchito said as he carried his bags out to the car. “I’m sure my family would love to meet you.”</p><p>“I can attest to that, they keep asking about both of us during our video calls my friend.” José tacked on.</p><p>Donald shook his head. “No thanks, I’d rather just stay home this weekend.”</p><p>“If you won’t go with them, what about us?” April interjected as she passed the sailor on the stairs.</p><p>“Yeah, our aunt is going to be there; she’s about your age and is studying fashion design.” June added.</p><p>“She’s REALLY cute and REALLY single.” May said with a waggle of her eyebrows.</p><p>Donald couldn’t help but chuckle at the girl’s antics, for some reason they had become absolutely convinced over the past two weeks that this mysterious aunt of theirs was Donald’s soulmate and they should definitely hook up; it was a nice thought but Donald really wasn’t interested, he was fine with being single for the time being.</p><p>“Thanks but no thanks, I’ve got some stuff I need to do back here anyways, you guys have fun this weekend.” the duck replied with a smile.</p><p>Panchtio walked over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I understand mi amore, we’ll see you in four days!”</p><p>“See ya guys!”</p><p>On that note, Donald’s roommates and best friends pulled away from the manor in their respective transports and left the duck all alone. Once he shut the door to his home behind him, Donald dropped his cheery facade and changed into something much more guilt-ridden as he made his way up to his study.</p><p>‘My study, I’m still getting used to saying that’ Donald thought to himself as he traversed the halls.</p><p>A short walk later brought him up to a large office room with several antiquities lining the walls and a carved wood desk sitting in the center of it all. Donald walked over to said desk and pulled open one of the bottom drawers, retrieving the items inside and laying them down on the table where he could get a better look at them: it was his mother’s letters to Scrooge and Della, still unopened and undelivered</p><p>Donald sighed. “Why does this stuff have to be so hard?”</p><p>He wanted to see his family again, he really did, especially since he had managed to finally pull his act together. But for some reason he kept putting it off, flinching away from the thought of reconnecting with his uncle and sister and making up excuse after excuse to avoid heading over to Duckburg. Maybe he was scared of what they’d say or do to him when they did see them again, maybe he was worried they would hate him for leaving, or maybe he just didn’t feel like the moment was right; but at the end of the day he knew that all of these concerns weren’t grounded in anything and he was just trying to justify not reuniting with his family sooner, which caused some rather guilty feelings to start welling up in his gut.</p><p>The fact that he was completely breaking his promise to Mickey and Goofy wasn’t helping matters either. He had told them that the second he got his mind cleared up, he’d march straight over to Mcduck manor and talk things out with his family, explain where he’s been all this time, and hope that they forgave him for disappearing for so long. Yet here he was, head straight as an arrow and he still hadn’t even sent his family so much as a text. What would his navy buddies think?</p><p>“Man, it has been a while since we’ve seen each other hasn’t it?” Donald remarked, realizing that their last meet up having been two months ago.</p><p>Between his death, subsequent resurrection, beating his depression, defeat of Felldrake, and dealing with the fallout of Sheldgoose’s death (none of which he told them about during their regular phone chats), Donald had almost no time to arrange for a hang out session between the three of them.</p><p>“Maybe I should change that.” Donald remarked, waddling over to a phone and dialing Mickey’s number. A weekend together with the guys sounded perfect right about now, even if a small part of him acknowledged that he was just stalling again.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>“Guys! So happy you could make it!” Donald said, greeting his friends standing in front of the cabana with a hug.</p><p>When the Duck called up his old friends for a good old fashioned guys weekend in New Quackmore, the duo had almost instantaneously agreed and started heading over as soon as they could. He was somewhat surprised that they had given him an answer so quickly but chalked it up to Mickey and Goofy just being their classic friendly selves, they probably agreed with his sentiment that it’s been too long since they’ve seen each other.</p><p>“Aww. It’s nice to see ya too buddy.” Goofy remarked as he returned the embrace.</p><p>“I would have invited you both over sooner but things have been...eventful, lately.”</p><p>“Well I’m sure you can tell us all about it inside.” Mickey said</p><p>Donald nodded and turned away from the cabana, much to his friends’ confusion.</p><p>“Uh Donald, your house is that way.” Mickey deadpanned.</p><p>“Oh I don’t live there anymore.” Donald replied.</p><p>The duck motioned for his navy buddies to follow him and they wordlessly implied, picking up their bags and trailing after him. The surprised looks on their faces when he walked straight into the gigantic manor surrounding the cabana would be something Donald treasured until the end of time.</p><p>“What the-” Goofy looked around in bewilderment. “You live HERE?!”</p><p>Donald grinned. “The previous owner died without naming an heir and because his ancestor used to work with mine, I got both his house and his job by default.”</p><p>“Wow, talk about luck.”</p><p>“Like I said, eventful.” Donald replied with a shrug. “Anyways, the guest bedrooms are in the west wing. You guys can just pick one and toss your stuff in there, I’ll be waiting in the kitchen over there in the meantime.”</p><p>The duo stalked off with a nod and left Donald alone once more, who quickly made his way into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. The tart taste of the drink helped him contemplate how he was going to explain what had conspired since Mickey and Goofy had left.</p><p>His first instinct was to keep it a secret, but Donald quickly rejected those thoughts; he hadn’t told them about recent events simply because he didn’t want them to start worrying about him and drag him away from the Caballeros for his own safety. But now that Felldrake was gone and the world was (relatively) at peace, he had no reason to hide things anymore. He was going to tell them about everything that led him to becoming the proud owner of a manor.</p><p>After another half hour of waiting around, during which Donald started to grow concerned about his friends’ absence, Mickey and Goofy stumbled into the kitchen with rather sheepish looks.</p><p>Donald knew exactly what that meant. “You got lost didn’t you?”</p><p>The mouse and dog nodded in unison, prompting a chuckle from their avian friend.</p><p>“Don’t feel too bad about it, the same thing happened to Panchito when we first moved in. He went missing for two days and June found him curled up behind one of the third floor living rooms, apparently he had been eating nothing but toothpaste to survive.”</p><p>“Speaking of Panchito, where is everybody? I figured they would have been ready to ambush us at the door.” Asked Mickey</p><p>“They’re all out of town visiting family this weekend.” Donald replied. “We’ve got the whole place to ourselves for the next four days.”</p><p>Goofy groaned “Aw, I was really looking forward to seeing those guys again. They seemed like a riot.”</p><p>“Well enough about that, what have you been up to lately Donald? You’ve hardly told us anything over the phone and well-” Mickey motioned to the mansion around them. “I feel like you’ve got a few stories for us.”</p><p>“Well for starters I died.” Donald deadpanned through another sip of orange juice.</p><p>Mickey and Goofy laughed for a moment before they noticed that Donald had a dead serious look on his face.</p><p>“Wait, you’re joking. Right?”</p><p>Donald shook his head and went into detail about what had happened. How he got dragged into a wrestling ring with Panchito and everyone got killed as a result of their actions, leading him to find out that Kay wasn’t really dead and having a heart to heart talk with his dead parents; he talked about his hero training and how he literally beat down his depression and addiction before returning home to save the world.</p><p>“And after Sheldgoose shattered the staff and killed himself along with his master Felldrake, everything went back to normal and I was declared the president of the New Quackmore institute by default which granted me ownership of this lovely manor! Ever since then things have quieted down in the mystical world and we’ve been enjoying a long deserved rest.” The duck finished.</p><p>The duo just stared at their companion in shock, clearly struggling to even comprehend the experiences he had gone through until Goofy finally broke the silence.</p><p>“Wow, ya really have been busy.”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “Saving the world’s a tough job, at least I got away with one heck of a reward for my troubles.”</p><p>“But that stuff you said about shangri-la.” Mickey said. “Are you really sure it worked? You’re not still feeling the blues are you?”</p><p>“Not at all, that whole feeling of guilt that I used to have is completely gone along with any sense of self doubt plus I’ve been completely sober for over a month. Trust me guys, I’m feeling great.” Donald said with a sly smile.</p><p>Mickey crossed his arms. “Really? Then why haven’t you gone to see your family yet?”</p><p>Donald frowned, suddenly finding his feet to be a very interesting sight. He should have known this would have come up with the conversation at some point during this weekend, he had just hoped he would have been able to come up with an excuse before that point.</p><p>“Well I-”</p><p>“Donald.” Mickey snapped. “You promised.”</p><p>“I know it’s just that-”</p><p>The mouse leaned in further. “Doesn’t it bother you that your family is probably still worried sick about you while you’re living it up in New Quackmore?”</p><p>“It’s hard, okay?!” Donald shouted. “I’ve been gone for almost three years now! Hardly a day goes by anymore where I don’t think of them and how much they must miss me. But at the same time I’m scared of seeing them again because I have no idea how they’ll react, what if they hate me?”</p><p>“Donald, this is Della and Scrooge we’re talking about; do you really think they’d EVER hate you?” Goofy said.</p><p>Donald’s face met the table. “I know, but-”</p><p>“No buts.” Mickey said, gently slapping Donald’s shoulder. “Buts are for sitting. Your family loves you and wants you to come home Donald, you’ve solved all your personal issues so you’ve got no reason to stay away; it’s time you have a good old fashioned reunion.”</p><p>“You’re right. You’re always right Mickey.” Donald sighed. “Can it just wait until after this weekend though? I want to have a few more days of relaxation with my best friends before I get dragged along on a week-long adventure with Scrooge and Della to celebrate my return.”</p><p>“I dunno…” Goofy trailed off.</p><p>“Please? It’ll be fun and when it’s over we’ll head straight to Mcduck manor to see Scrooge and Della again.” Donald pleaded.</p><p>“Okay buddy, one more weekend. But after that no more stalling!”</p><p>Donald nodded. “Thanks guys. Now come on, I promise this weekend will be one we’ll never forget.”</p><p>Little did the duck realize how true his statement would end up being at the time.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“Come on, come on...argh! Scratch!” Donald growled as the cue ball sank into the corner pocket.</p><p>After giving Mickey and Goofy a full tour of the manor (sans the Sheldgoose catacombs, that part was probably best left buried along with the rest of his legacy) and ordering a few pizzas, the two migrated to one of the many game rooms in the manor for a good old fashioned game of pool; a game that Donald and Mickey were losing horribly to Goofy, say what you will about the clumsy dog but he certainly knew his way around a pool cue.</p><p>“Well it looks like it’s my turn again fellas.” Goofy said before lining up his cue and sinking two balls with one solid thrust of his arm.</p><p>“How do you do it Goofy?” Mickey asked with a shake of his head. “I’ve never met somebody this good at pool before.”</p><p>“Now that you mention it, there’s actually a funny story to that. See back in high school, there was this old pool hall back in my hometown and- WOAH!”</p><p>Goofy didn’t get to utter another sentence as when he leaned against a certain section of wall, his elbow accidentally pressed down onto a hidden button that caused a hidden stairwell to suddenly open up behind him that he promptly tumbled down with several pain filled shouts.</p><p>“What the- what is it with rich guys and secret basements?!” Donald exclaimed as he rushed down the hidden stairs to help his friend with Mickey following closely behind.</p><p>Thankfully Goofy wasn’t majorly injured by his little fall, he was a bit bruised up but he could still stand. What was more interesting was the room he had stumbled into: unlike the massive Sheldgoose catacombs that seemed to go on for miles, this secret basement was far smaller and consisted of only one medium sized chamber that seemed to serve the purpose of some kind of study with scrolls, diagrams, and dusty furniture littered about. The most striking aspect was a massive onyx colored door that took up an entire wall with a massive keyhole sitting in the middle of it</p><p>Their curiosity piqued, the trio started to search through the scrolls and tried to get a better look at the door.</p><p>“Ya said this whole place used to belong to some kinda evil sorcerer, right Donald?” Goofy remarked.</p><p>“Yeah. It looks like he was doing research into something, but what?” Donald unfurled a few of the scrolls sitting on the shelves in the corner, kicking up a large dust cloud in the process. When was the last time Felldrake was even in here? At least his notes were in legible english.</p><p>
  <em>Entry 47: my research has been progressing rather nicely as of recently. I’ve finally managed to trace the source of this new dark power which is coined, rather stupidly, ‘the darkness’. Despite it’s simplistic terminology, the darkness seems to have the ability to grant those who wield it near infinite power along with an endless supply of minions; ‘the heartless’ as I now understand them to be. While there is an inherent danger in drawing from such power, I have little doubt that a skilled sorcerer of the forbidden arts will have any difficulty doing so, especially since my newest project is nearly done forging. Hopefully by the time the Three Caballeros manage to catch onto what I’m doing I will have already grown too far in strength for them to properly combat me. Until then I must keep them distracted, perhaps waking up Pennywise will provide ample entertainment.<br/>Signed, Felldrake.</em>
</p><p>Next to the line of text was a crude illustration of what looked like some weird bug thing that stood on two legs with black skin, yellow eyes, and a pair of antennae sitting atop it’s head.</p><p>As Donald sifted through more of the writings, he started to gleam more insight into what Felldrake had been researching but at the same time more questions were raised. Throughout the entries the sorcerer kept bringing up things like Keyblades, Hearts, and ‘Kingdom Hearts’, whatever those were. But eventually the entries cut off, likely the result of his ancestor capturing Felldrake all those centuries ago, and whatever Felldrake had been searching for remained unfound; which was probably for the best, if Felldrake was after it then it couldn’t have been good.</p><p>“Hey guys. Maybe we shouldn’t be touching any of this.” Donald said, a clear sense of danger suddenly crawling up his spine.</p><p>“Aw it’s just some old bottles and papers, what’s the worst that could happen? Right Mick?” Goofy chuckled.</p><p>Mickey didn’t respond, he didn’t even give so much as a single sign of acknowledgement to Goofy’s question.</p><p>“Mickey?” Donald hesitated.</p><p>When the former sailor turned towards the aforementioned mouse, he saw that his vision was locked upon an open chest that had something glowing inside of it; Mickey’s attention was completely consumed by the artifact itself as if he was caught in a trance. Before anyone could react, the mouse reached inside of the case and pulled out a large golden key about the size of a golf club.</p><p>Suddenly, Mickey swung the key around and pointed it towards the door taking up one of the walls, a bright beam of light sprouting forth from the key and nailing the keyhole dead on.</p><p>That was about the moment everything went to hell.</p><p>The door burst open, revealing nothing but pure darkness within, and several inky tentacles exploded forth and rushed towards the trio.</p><p>Mickey was the first to go, showing absolutely no distress or any type of reaction as one of the tendrils wrapped around his waist and yanked him into the darkness.</p><p>Goofy was next, despite his longer stride, he only made it a few steps towards the exit before one of the tentacles caught his leg and dragged him into the door as he clawed at the ground in a vain attempt to get away.</p><p>Donald made it the furthest, getting up two stairs before a tentacle snaked its way around his waist and pulled. But Donald wasn’t about to give up that easily, he grabbed a hold of the doorway and dug his fingers into the stone. If for no other reason than to buy himself some extra time.</p><p>Unfortunately for our feathered friend, the shadowy creature that lied behind the door didn’t take too kindly to his resistance and flung out several more limbs that wrapped around his legs and managed to pry him off the door before reeling him into the shadows just as it had done with his friends.</p><p>Donald’s entire vision was consumed by darkness as he fell into the abyss, the sensation of weightlessness setting in shortly after as he began to drift aimlessly. His senses failed him, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he just existed in the void.</p><p>Then all at once it came rushing back like a raging river when he fell face first into a mound of snow, the cold temperature snapping him back into consciousness as he let out the breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.</p><p>Donald didn’t know how long he was in there for, it could have been mere moments or years, but frankly he didn’t care much at the moment; he was too busy savoring the feeling of bitter cold against his beak.</p><p>‘Wait, snow?’ Donald thought to himself</p><p>Head snapping up, Donald found himself in the middle of a snow covered forest with no discernable landmarks in sight; and worse still, no sight of his friends in the nearby vicinity.</p><p>“Mickey? Goofy? Guys?” Donald called out.</p><p>He received no response apart from the gentle russell of the trees as a breeze blew through the forest, he was completely and utterly alone.</p><p>Donald took in a deep breath before he had a chance to panic, now was not the time to start losing his head. He did a basic rundown of the situation: Mickey had activated some kind of magical artifact that worked in conjunction with that weird door which opened a portal to...wherever he was now and from the looks of it, Mickey and Goofy got dumped somewhere else.</p><p>‘It’s fine, it’s okay, you’ve been in worse spots.’ Donald reassured himself. ‘You just have to figure out where you are first and go from there, maybe find a town or something, just pick a direction and head off.’</p><p>Before Donald could put his plan into action however, he heard several twigs snap behind him as something approached him.</p><p>He wasn’t alone.</p><p>Erring on the side of caution, Donald got into a combat stance and prepared himself for whatever creature was about to burst forth from the bushes. After a few moments he was greeted by a rather familiar sight: it was one of those weird bug things from Felldrake’s drawings, only this time it was all too real and much freakier in person with it’s twitchy stance and bulging yellow eyes that stared him down.</p><p>The two beings just stared at one another for a few moments, merely observing each other with some level of curiosity. Until finally the bug thing made the first move and pounced onto the duck, luckily Donald was ready for it and grabbed the creature out of the air before throwing him into one of the nearby trees. The creature collapsed to the ground upon impact, twitching slightly in what seemed to be pain.</p><p>“Ha, is that it? You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to-” Donald was promptly cut off by a second, identical creature tackling him to the ground and clawing away at him, tearing up his sailor uniform in the process.</p><p>Donald struggled against the creature, trying to defend himself against it’s blows until he landed a decisive hit that sent it sprawling off of him, into the snow.</p><p>Once the sailor got back to his feet, he realized that several more creatures were emerging from the foliage and the ones he had already dealt with were quickly recovering.</p><p>“Aw phooey…” Donald muttered before turning tail and fleeing the scene, the sound of crunching snow echoed through the forest as these weird shadow creatures pursued him.</p><p>The duck tried his best to lose them, hopping over fallen logs, dashing through bushes, and weaving through the trees, but no matter what those things just kept on him; right up until they cornered him at the edge of a large cliff.</p><p>Donald skidded to a stop at the edge, just barely preventing himself from plummeting to the ground, his breaths uneven and panicked as his head whipped around to face the pack of creatures that had surrounded him. There was no way he was beating this many back with his bare hands, he was completely outnumbered after all, but at the very least he could take a few of these freaks with him.</p><p>Unfortunately, the duck never got the chance to enact his blaze of glory as he heard a loud cracking sound coming from beneath his feet and by the time he realized what was happening, the cliff had already given away and he was falling through the air.</p><p>It only took Donald a few seconds for his body to slam into the ground below, a sickening crunch sounding off upon impact as his vision blurred, he tried to get back to his feet but his body simply refused to respond and his sight was quickly being consumed by darkness.</p><p>The last thing the poor duck saw before he blacked out was a blue and white figure rapidly approaching him and then...nothing.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>************************</p>
</div><p>Donald’s eyes snapped open, the sight of a wooden ceiling above him and the feeling of warm blankets proving him with immense relief and comfort.</p><p>“Oh thank goodness, it was all a dre-” Donald sat up and froze. “This isn’t my room…”</p><p>Instead of the extravagant four walls that made up the master bedroom of Sheldgoose manor, Donald found himself sitting in a much more rustic room with wooden furniture lit by candlelight. He was most definitely not home.</p><p>The duck hissed when a sharp pain ran through his skull, he grabbed at the affected area only to find some bandages wrapped around it and, upon further observation, realized that much of his body had received the same mummy treatment.</p><p>“What the heck…”</p><p>“Oh good! You’re awake!” A cheery voice exclaimed.</p><p>Donald’s head whipped over to the now open doorway leading into the room and saw...well he wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking at. It seemed to be some kind of weird monkey creature with pink skin, a long white beard, five fingers on each hand, glasses balanced on a weird lump on its face, and blue robes covering the rest. Unlike the shadow creatures that had confronted him earlier, this thing seemed far less threatening but Donald didn’t let down his guard, looks could be deceiving after all.</p><p>“I was worried that you had hit the ground so hard you were gone for good.” The creature exclaimed, approaching Donald with a covered tray.</p><p>“Um, who are you?” Donald said as he looked the creature up and down. “What are you?”</p><p>“Me? I am Merlin, master of magic and traveler of worlds. Who are you?” The monkey thing said as he placed the tray on a nightstand next to the bed.</p><p>“Donald Duck and while I thank you for patching me up I really have to- OW!” the duck yelped when he tried to get out of bed, his body helpfully reminding him that he was in no shape to start walking around.</p><p>“Easy there little fella, you had quite the fall there. You need to rest up, regain your strength, here.” Merlin pulled off the cover of the tray to reveal a lovely breakfast spread consisting of waffles with maple syrup, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and a glass of apple juice. “Eat up, I hope you like waffles.”</p><p>Donald did like waffles and the moment the heavenly scent of the cooked dough hit his nostrils, he couldn’t help himself and wolfed down the food.</p><p>“Well at least your appetite is still healthy.” The wizard chuckled.</p><p>The duck washed down the last bits of his meal with the juice the old man had so graciously provided him with. “Thank you. Hey you didn’t happen to run into anyone else out there did you? A mouse and a dog by chance?”</p><p>The old man shook his head. “Sorry, it was just you.”</p><p>“Darn.” Donald said with a hung head before something else occurred to him. “Wait, where am I?”</p><p>“My lair of course, come on let me show you around.”</p><p>The wizard gently helped Donald to his feet, letting the duck lean on him for support, and gently guided him out of the room into the rest of the house. Donald had been in plenty of wizard lairs over the course of his life, but this one had to be one of his favorites; it was somehow both cozy and whimsical at the same time, bookshelves and tapestries lining the walls, tables covered with potion sets or magical scrolls, floating candles bathing the entire place in a warm orange glow. It had a very homely feel to it. Eventually the wizard brought Donald to a large living room with a teapot and a few cups sitting atop a table in the center</p><p>“Nice place.” Donald remarked, taking a seat at the table.</p><p>“Yep, it may not be much but it’s home and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Tea?” asked Merlin as he poured himself a steaming hot cup.</p><p>“No thanks.”</p><p>Merlin sipped his drink. “Suit yourself, so mind telling me how an odd creature like yourself ended up here? I’ve never seen a creature like you before.”</p><p>“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” Donald shot back, getting a laugh out of the wizard as a result. “But it was the weirdest thing, one minute me and my friends are digging through this dead sorcerer’s research, one of them finds some kind of giant key, and the next thing I know I got sucked through a portal and spat out here with all of my friends missing.”</p><p>“Hmmm, hold on a moment.” Merlin pulled out a wand and used it to levitate one of the books off the shelves and flipped it open. “Did that key happen to look anything like this?”</p><p>Donald peered over the page, it contained a rather detailed illustration of a key that just so happened to be a dead ringer for the key that Mickey had pulled out of the chest earlier. At the top of the page in bolded letters was the word ‘keyblade.’.</p><p>“Yeah, exactly like that.”</p><p>“Oh that’s not good, it would seem as though your friend used the power of a key blade to open an interdimensional wormhole that brought all of you into this universe and left you seperated.”</p><p>“So my friends are lost?!” Donald cried.</p><p>“No, not lost. Just scattered amongst the stars but I may be able to help you locate them, in return for a small favor.” explained Merlin.</p><p>Donald crossed his arms. “What’s the favor?”</p><p>“Well you can probably tell that I’m not exactly a spring chick anymore, I’m old Donald and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around before father time decides to punch my ticket, I want to make sure that my teachings are passed on before I reach that point. If you agree to become my disciple and let me train you in the mystical arts, I will help you find all of your friends wherever they may be.”</p><p>Donald contemplated Merlin’s offer. On the one hand his various encounters with magic users from his adventures with Scrooge and with the Caballeros had left a rather bad taste in his mouth in regards to witches and wizards, plus he had known Merlin for less than a day and didn’t have much reason to trust him yet; but on the other hand Merlin knew a lot more about the world than he did and would probably be best suited to locating Mickey and Goofy, not to mention learning magic could prove to be a useful skill for whatever foes he had to face going forwards.</p><p>Eventually his concern for his friends won out. “Alright Merlin, you’ve got a deal. I’ll be your student but you have to help me find my friends as soon as possible and if I think even for a second you’re trying to deceive me in any way, I WILL make you regret it.”</p><p>“Fair enough.” the wizard said with a shrug. “Oh and before I forget, your clothes were damaged in the fall so I made you these!”</p><p>With another wave of his wand, a blue outfit floated into view that resembled a heavily modified version of his sailor uniform. His hat now sported a belt in the place of the normal brim with a zipper spanning the length of it, his jacket was still the same navy blue only with more pouches on the front and sides, the biggest addition was a short blue cape with yellow lining that had a silver clasp to hold it in place, and to complete the look was a pair of golden bracelets. It was certainly an odd outfit but, upon changing into the uniform, Donald found that he pulled off the look rather well.</p><p>That was the beginning of Donald’s tutelage under the great wizard Merlin and the day that set him on the path to becoming deeply involved in a conflict that would shake the entire universe to its core.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“A wizard? Sure why not? He’s covered pretty much every other hero archetype. Might as well round things out.” Louie remarked.</p><p>Webby rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, Lena is gonna flip when she finds out Donald knows magic. Maybe he could teach her a few tricks!”</p><p>“We should probably wait until after we finish reading this.” Huey pointed out. “We don’t know how uncle Donald would react to us finding out his secrets.”</p><p>“Wait, how are we going to break this to him?”</p><p>Huey opened his beak to explain how exactly they were going to explain to their uncle that they had been digging up his past and basically invading their privacy, until he realized that he actually didn’t have a plan on how to explain such a situation on their terms. Much less if Donald or, heaven forbid, one of the other adults stumbled upon their shared reading.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>yep I'm doing an Isekai angle for the Kingdom hearts arc (for those that don't know, an isekai story is a genre of anime that involves a normal person being transported to parallel or fantasy worlds through a variety of means)</p><p>now before we go any further I'm just going to set some ground rules for this arc:<br/>1. anything related to the ducktales/mickey mouse universe (disney castle, timeless river, ect.) does not exist in this timeline, all the other properties are fair game. Thus Mickey isn't a king.<br/>2. Apart from the trio, only ONE character is going to appear from the ducktales/Mickey Mouse universe during this arc. (hint: it's not pete)<br/>3. for the sake of my sanity, I'm only going to cover the events of kingdom hearts 1-3. The spin off games will only get minor references instead of complete chapters.<br/>4. Because the entire tale is supposed to be told from Donald's journal entries, any events he was not present for during canon kingdom hearts (the destruction of destiny island for example) won't be covered either; Donald has to have been there for it to be fair game.<br/>5. and finally, don't expect me to follow the story of kingdom hearts to a T. This is a canon divergent fic so I am going to take some artistic liberties with the story to make sure everything comes together</p><p>Also with school starting up again I'm gonna have to take a break from this fic for awhile to focus on my studies, it's not quite a hiatus but do expect larger gaps between updates during this time. Just hang in there though, I will finish this story if it kills me!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Kingdom Hearts 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Let me get this straight, you’re saying that Donald Duck, the guy who has been a super hero and a secret agent, is a wizard too?” Lena said in disbelief.</p><p>Webby nodded. “Yep, he’s been formally trained and everything. Although we haven’t found out how strong he is yet.”</p><p>“Given all that he’s done so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wound up being able to go toe to toe with Magica at her peak.”</p><p>“Neither would I, but I think we’re missing the important thing here.” Violet interjected. “If Donald’s stories are true, which they likely are all things considered, this could very well prove multiverse theory. Do you know how huge this could be for the scientific community?”</p><p>At that moment, Huey came back into the room with his brothers in tow and their arms full of snacks.</p><p>“As much as I’d like to agree, Violet.” the red hatted duck began. “We can’t tell anybody about this, at least not yet.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“Because these are uncle Donald’s secrets. It’s bad enough that we know about it, if anybody else found out about his adventures...who knows what could happen.” Louie stated, popping open a bag of ketchup chips.</p><p>“He’s got ya there sis.” Lena said. “Anyways, should we get back to it?”</p><p>“Let’s.” Dewey replied, handing his brother the journal.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>‘Six months’ Donald thought to himself as he carved another notch into the wooden walls of his room. ‘That’s how long I’ve been stranded in this dimension for.’</p><p>The duck let out a sad huff as he hopped out of bed and changed into his wizard uniform. It had been six months since that fateful day that him and his friends had gotten sucked into that portal, six months since he had been torn away from his world and lost all of his friends to the cosmos, six months without a single clue to their whereabouts despite Merlin’s efforts. Donald knew the wizard was keeping his promise, he had seen him pouring over his texts and asking the locals whenever they went on a trip.</p><p>Weaker men would have begun to lose hope by this point but Donald wasn’t weak, he held out and continued to maintain the idea that he was going to find his friends and get home; Donald knew everything would be fine if he just stood strong and kept going. Being able to focus on his magic training as a distraction from the situation certainly helped matters.</p><p>The duck started his tutelage under Merlin about a week after he had arrived, his injuries having finally healed by that point, and it was during those initial days of training that Donald gained a whole new respect for magic users for one simple reason: magic. was. HARD. Really hard.</p><p>He must have blown himself up at least several dozen times when just trying to cast a simple levitation spell and his feathers were still somewhat scorched at the tips from the time he accidentally cast ‘thunder’ upon himself. Luckily Merlin was more than patient as a teacher and implored Donald to treat every one of his failures as a learning experience on the road to becoming a true wizard.</p><p>It took him so long to master a few simple spells; but once Donald finally got the hang of basic magic, his skills took off like a rocket. He started picking up spells left and right, learning them in a fraction of the time it took for him to master the others. He always preferred offensive magic, particularly those of the elemental variety with thunder holding a very special place in his heart, the utilization of fireballs and lightning bolts just made him feel so powerful as a wizard; Merlin said that the duck seemed to have an affinity for the path of the black mage, one who acted more as an offensive spell caster than a supportive one in combat situations and tended to shy away from healing spells. That would certainly explain why Donald could never cast any healing spells despite having a full understanding of said spell’s mechanics, every time he tried it just fizzled out, but he figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem since potions could probably cover his weak point when it came to magic.</p><p>It wasn’t all training of course, he did have to help Merlin with certain errands now and then. Be it finding and collecting ingredients, charting the stars, and acting as his general assistant but even those were somewhat of a learning experience as Merlin would often tell Donald tales of this strange world he found himself in: apparently every living creature, Merlin and Donald included, had a sort of metaphysical heart that was closer to being a soul than an actual organ; it held every creatures’ emotions, memories, wills, and goals and was essentially the core of their very being. Whenever a creature lost their heart or had it overcome by darkness they would create two beings: a heartless, the shadow monsters that Donald had fought initially and sometimes encountered on his trips with Merlin who were born from the remnants of a person’s heart, and a nobody which was born from the empty shell left behind after the heart left the body. Both of which were very hostile monsters that would love nothing more than to consume the hearts of those who still had them. The largest of these hearts was referred to as the ‘kingdom hearts’ which was supposed to be the heart of the universe itself which contained untold power and knowledge which caused it to be pursued by individuals both good and evil.</p><p>And that was just the tip of the iceberg, there was so much to this universe, so much Donald didn’t or couldn’t even hope to grasp from the forces of the light and the darkness, to keyblades, to keyholes, and more. He had thought he had seen it all back home on earth but he was dead wrong; for the first time in a long time, the duck felt completely and utterly out of his depths. Which is probably why he focused so hard on his magical training, he had no idea what laid out in the far reaches of this universe, Merlin and Donald had always observed worlds from a distance when charting them amongst the stars as the wizard claimed that they were far too dangerous to traverse without help. As such Donald knew he had to be prepared for anything when he finally did begin his quest to find his friends, whenever that may be.</p><p>Conversely, that day happened to be today and it all started with a series of knocks coming from the front door of Merlin’s tower.</p><p>“Donald! Could you get that? I’m busy brewing a polyjuice potion!” Merlin shouted from his lab.</p><p>“Sure thing Merlin!” Donald replied, picking up his staff and taking a moment to admire it before heading down.</p><p>He was still really proud of the day he received his wizard staff, he had finally gotten a full set of elemental spells down and Merlin had decided to celebrate the duck’s progress by giving him his very own wizard staff that was specially tailored to his own unique magical abilities. True it did look a tad silly with the head of it having a witches hat and a blue cape that very much resembled his own, but it served him well in his studies and he wouldn’t trade it for any other.</p><p>The knocks increased in frequency and intensity as Donald got into the main foyer.</p><p>“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Donald shouted in annoyance. “What do you-”</p><p>The duck froze in place upon seeing who was on the other side of the door, his beak nearly hitting the floor in surprise. His getup was a bit different than before with a green turtleneck, a black leather vest with several zipper pockets upon it, yellow pants secured around his waist with a black belt, massive steel toed boots to house his equally massive feet, a yellow hat with goggles strapped to it sitting atop his head, and shield strapped to his arm; but despite that Donald would never have forgotten that face.</p><p>“Uh yeah, I’m looking for this guy: Donald Duck. I was told-” Goofy also froze mid sentence, his expression mirroring the duck he was now facing as the realization washed over both of them.</p><p>The duo just stared at each other in shock, neither one of them moving from their spot as their brains tried to catch up with what they were seeing, until finally Goofy managed to recover and scoop his friend into a crushing bear hug.</p><p>“Donald!” Goofy cried out in joy, swinging the duck around.</p><p>“Goofy!” Donald exclaimed, tightly squeezing him back.</p><p>“I can’t believe it! I found ya, it took me six months but I finally found ya!” Goofy cheered as he placed Donald back down on the floor. “You’re looking good Don! Ya been working out or something?”</p><p>“Same to you pal! And I’ve been training to be a wizard with this guy Merlin! I even got my own staff and everything!”</p><p>To demonstrate, Donald cast a cone of coldness at a nearby vase and quickly froze it into a block of ice.</p><p>“Wowie! Now that’s really somethin!”</p><p>Donald nodded. “Thanks but, where have you been all this time?”</p><p>“Well…” Goofy said, rubbing his chin. “I landed on this really hot desert planet where a tribe of shipbuilders lived, they rescued me after I nearly died of thirst trying to find you guys and they took me under their wing; they taught me how to fight, how to work gummi ships and gummi blocks, and they even gave me this shield. Anyways, I spent about five months there before they helped me build a ship and sent me out into the world to find you and Mickey; I traveled around a bit until I got a tip that you were seen with this wizard guy and here I am!”</p><p>“Gummi ships?”</p><p>“They’re kinda like spaceships, mine’s parked right outside.”</p><p>Donald peered over his friend’s shoulder to see that there was indeed a multicolored spaceship parked right outside the tower, one that looked more like something you’d find in a child’s toy chest with how silly it looked.</p><p>“Now that I’ve shared my story, how about you share yers?” Goofy asked.</p><p>And so Donald did, explaining that he was also spat out into an unfamiliar world and was nearly killed when he was attacked by the heartless (luckily Goofy’s shipbuilder friends seemed to have also given him a few history lessons on what those were), as well as how he narrowly escaped their clutches and was nursed back to health by Merlin before becoming his apprentice.</p><p>“Ever since then I’ve been learning how to use magic and trying to figure out where you guys ended up...speaking of, do you know where Mickey is?” Donald finished.</p><p>Goofy frowned and shrugged in response. “Honestly, I was hoping you had found him by now. But hey, at least we’re back together! If we put our heads together we should be able to find Mickey in no time at all!”</p><p>Donald tried to get in another word, but he was stopped by his mentor coming down the stairs.</p><p>“Donald, come quick I believe I may have found- Oh hello, I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” Merlin said as he poked his head into the room.</p><p>Donald motioned to the lanky dog. “Merlin, this is Goofy. He was one of the friends I’ve been looking for!”</p><p>Goofy waved at the old man who returned the gesture with a kind smile.</p><p>“Nice to meet you. Anyways as I was saying, after searching over countless tomes I believe I may have finally found a lead onto the whereabouts of your other friend, Mickey you called him?” the aged wizard explained.</p><p>Goofy and Donald’s eyes nearly bugged out of their skulls at this new information, the duo quickly rushing after the wizard as he went back upstairs to his study.</p><p>Upon arriving in the aforementioned study, Merlin laid out a rather large book on the table in the center of the room and flipped it open to an illustration of two keyblades.</p><p>“Now then, you said that the keyblade Mickey used to unlock the portal was golden with a silver handle? Similar to this one?” Merlin asked as he pointed to one of the illustrations.</p><p>Donald thought for a few moments, focusing on the brief glimpse of the key he got all those months ago, before nodding in response.</p><p>“That was the kingdom key D. One of the most powerful Keyblades to ever exist, forged with the power of the darkness itself to act as a counterpart to the kingdom key L which was forged from the power of light; both were thought to have been lost to the ages but it appears as though your friend found the former.”</p><p>“Okay but how does any of this help us find Mickey?” Goofy interjected.</p><p>“Because both kingdom keys are linked to one another on a spiritual level, allowing the user of one key to track the location of the other and I’ve recently received word that the kingdom key L has not only resurfaced but has obtained a new wielder.” Merlin explained. “If you can find whoever possesses kingdom key L, they may be able to lead you straight to kingdom key D and by extension, you friend Mickey.”</p><p>“So how do we find the kingdom key?”</p><p>Merlin adopted an expression of befuddlement. “Unfortunately that’s the part I haven’t worked out yet, you’ll likely have to travel from world to world until you find the keyblade or at least find someone who might know where the keyblade is.”</p><p>“Wait, what do you mean?” Donald said in confusion.</p><p>“I’m saying that it’s time for you to go Donald.” Merlin stated as he closed the book.</p><p>“What, but Merlin I’m not-”</p><p>“You are ready, I’ve seen you grow from a mere practitioner of cheap trick to a full fledged mage and it has been wonderful. While you may have more to learn, you won’t be able to do it under my tutelage; you need to go out into the other worlds, only out there will you be able to continue to grow. Plus the worlds desperately need a keyblade wielder, the darkness has been growing ever stronger and more and more stars have been going out; you need to find the kingdom key not only to save your friend, but the worlds themselves. Do you understand?”</p><p>Donald nodded his head. “Yes Merlin but...where do we even start?”</p><p>“Traverse Town would be your best bet, if a new keyblade wielder showed up in our universe they likely would have passed through there at some point. Here.” Merlin stated, pressing a rolled up map into Goofy’s hand. “You can use this to find it.”</p><p>“Thank ya sir!” Goofy said, giving the wizard a rather silly salute.</p><p>“You’re welcome, good luck both of you!”</p><p>Before they left Donald quickly hugged his teacher. “Goodbye Merlin, thanks for everything.”</p><p>The bearded wizard hugged the duck back. “It was a pleasure Donald, now go out there and save the world. And if you meet someone named Yen Sid, tell him he still owes me a new hat!”</p><p>“Will do!”</p><p>On that note the duo made their way out of the wizard’s tower towards the gummi ship. As they boarded the vessel, Donald quickly realized that it was much more advanced in the interior than its outward appearance would imply; rows upon rows of buttons and switches coupled with holographic screens, it reminded him so much of that spaceship him and the Caballeros flew (or rather crashed) back in egypt.</p><p>“Wow, you built this?” Donald awed.</p><p>Goofy shrugged. “Most of it, I had a bit of help here and there. The old gal’s served me well so far, she should get us where we need to go.”</p><p>“Great, let’s go!” the duck cheered as he hopped into the pilot’s seat, his excitement getting the better of him</p><p>“Wait, I’m the only one who knows how to pilot this thing!”</p><p>“Come on Goofy how hard can it-” Donald was cut off when he pressed a button on the control panel that caused the ship to jerk back, a loud bang coming from the back of the ship followed up by the distinct sound of a tree falling over.</p><p>The mage sheepishly chuckled as his friend glared at him. “Maybe you should drive.”</p><p>“Maybe I should.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“So this is Traverse Town huh?” Donald remarked. “It’s kinda nice actually.”</p><p>After about three hours of flying, following Merlin’s direction to a T, the mage and the knight arrived in the aforementioned world. It was oddly reminiscent of some of the small towns in europe that Donald used to visit with his family while searching for various mystical artifacts in the vicinity be it Dr.Jekyll’s super soldier serum or the werewolf of glasgow, the streets were lit by oil lamps that bathed the victorian buildings in a comforting orange glow while a starry night hung overhead, the whistle of the wind whipped through the empty alleyways and streets; that of course begged the obvious question:</p><p>“Where is everybody?”</p><p>Goofy scratched his head. “Maybe they’re all asleep or somethin, it is night time.”</p><p>“I doubt it, there would be at least a couple people out and about even late at night.” Donald argued. “Well come on, let’s have a look around and see if we can find anything.”</p><p>The dog nodded in agreement as they headed off into the silent streets of Traverse Town, their eyes scanning the area for any of the locals. But out of the corner of his eye, Donald took notice of his friend’s expression. It was subtle, something that could have been easily missed by someone who didn’t know Goofy as well as Donald did, but it was clearly there; past the cheery smile there was just a hint of sadness.</p><p>“Goofy, are you okay?” Donald asked.</p><p>“Hmm?” Goofy hummed. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “Goofy, what’s wrong?</p><p>“Nothing’s wrong, everything’s peachy.” the dog insisted</p><p>That’s when it hit him. “You miss your family don’t you?”</p><p>Goofy hung his head in defeat. “Yeah...yeah I do. I’m just so worried about them, the misses had been feeling under the weather when I left and Maxie has needed me more than ever; I’ve been gone for half a year now, I don’t even want to think about what they must be going through right now, they’re probably just as worried about me as I am about them.”</p><p>“Hey don’t think about that, we’ll find a way home. I promise Goofy, we just have to hang in there.” Donald replied, trying to ignore the feelings of guilt crawling upon his back.</p><p>His family. In the excitement of being sucked into another world and trying to locate his friends Donald had completely forgotten about them. They were probably still searching for him, desperately trying to figure out where he had disappeared off to, and now he would be far out of reach. The last time they had spoken, Della was completely heartbroken and Scrooge shared the sentiment, his several year long absence had probably only made things even worse; they probably thought he had completely abandoned them outright. Then the thought of the Caballeros crossed his mind, which made him feel even more guilty, they were probably just as scared as his biological family was considering they were practically a second family to him; when they arrived back at the mansion with no Donald in sight, they likely panicked and called Xandra to find him.</p><p>‘It clearly didn’t do them any good if they still haven’t shown up.’ Donald thought to himself. ‘I wonder if they tried going to Scrooge and Della for help, that must have been a fun conversation.’</p><p>“You know what, you’re right!” Goofy exclaimed, snapping Donald out of his thoughts. “As long as we stick together and stand strong, what could go wrong?”</p><p>As if on cue, several of the heartless suddenly started pouring into the alley that they were walking through; climbing over the roofs, popping out of the buildings, and even crawling out of the ground.</p><p>Donald sighed in frustration, readying a fire spell. “You had to ask….”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Goofy let out a battle cry as he charged forth and barreled straight into a crowd of heartless with his shield, knocking them aside like they were bowling pins while Donald covered his back with a flurry of lightning spells that blasted the heartless apart.</p><p>Whoever those shipbuilders were, they certainly taught Goofy well. In their past adventures Donald often had to be the muscle of the group, doing most of the fighting while protecting his friends; but here Goofy was more than able to carry his own weight, fending off the heartless with his shield like a well seasoned warrior. As a matter of fact, Donald began to suspect that the dog’s shield was enchanted with the way he was able to flawlessly throw and ricochet the disk off various surfaces only to have it fly back into his hands, sometimes even in blatant defiance of physics themselves. He never thought someone could be so effective at fighting with a shield.</p><p>Between the two of them, they were absolutely decimating the heartless. Their fighting skills and firepower were more than a match for the shadow creatures’ superior numbers, which allowed them to fight their way through the streets of Traverse town with ease. But slowly but surely both men started to tire out.</p><p>“These lousy heartless just keep coming!” Donald shouted as he waved his staff, freezing several heartless in place.</p><p>“I don’t think I can keep this up much longer, there’s too many of them!” Goofy panted, knocking aside three more heartless with a swing of his shield. “We gotta get outta here! To the gummi ship!”</p><p>Donald nodded and shot out a fire ball, blasting a hole in the crowd of heartless that gave them the opening they needed to flee. Unfortunately during their mad dash through the streets of Traverse Town, desperately trying to fend off the heartless, they took more than a few wrong turns and wound up getting cornered by the heartless on a balcony.</p><p>“Huh, I coula sworn the ship was this way. Now what?”</p><p>Donald turned around and grit his teeth at the sight of more heartless popping out of the shadows, these ones wearing knights helmets for some reason. They might not get out of this, but there was no way he wasn’t going out without a fight.</p><p>“Let’s get em Goofy!” the duck exclaimed moments before the heartless fired a ball of dark energy at them, sending the duo flying off the balcony with terrified screams.</p><p>Fortunately for them, both Donald and Goofy wound up landing on top of another figure on the ground below who broke their fall and spared them any major injuries apart from a huge headache.</p><p>Once their heads stopped spinning, Donald spotted something very familiar clutched in the hand of the poor sap they had very nearly crushed with their bodies: A silver key with a golden handle.</p><p>“THE KINGDOM KEY!!!” Goofy and Donald exclaimed in unison as they scrambled to get off the keyblade wielder.</p><p>“Ouch.” the wielder said before being pulled back to his feet by Donald and Goofy.</p><p>“Sorry about that, we didn’t mean to land on ya!” Goofy apologized while dusting the guy off.</p><p>“It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me today.”</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald managed to get a better look at just who they had flattened. It was another one of those pink skinned monkeys, ‘hoo-mans’ Merlin called them, but this one looked much younger than the duck’s mentor; a soft baby face with sparkling blue eyes, spiky brown hair that looked like something out of those japanese cartoons Della used to watch, a black jacket with white sleeves over a red zip up shirt with matching pants, with comically oversized yellow shoes on his feet. From what Donald could gauge, this ‘hoo-man’ couldn’t have been any older than twelve.</p><p>Before the mage could get another word out, another crowd of heartless poured into the plaza and surrounded the three of them.</p><p>Goofy and Donald attempted to put themselves between the kid and the heartless, they couldn’t risk losing the only person who could help them find Mickey after all, but to their surprise the keyblade wielder rushed forward with a yell and started cleaving his way through the crowd, taking out multiple groups of heartless with just a few short swipes of his keyblade.</p><p>“Huh.” the duck said, glancing at his partner. “So the kid can fight.”</p><p>The dog nodded “So he can.”</p><p>Within minutes, the kid had managed to clear out the entire plaza of heartless. “Phew, that must have been the last of em’.”</p><p>“No it wasn’t.” Donald said, his old adventurer instincts kicking in. “we were getting swarmed by heartless things a few minutes ago and they never stopped coming.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“So, if a bunch of small predators stop attacking you. That usually means there’s a bigger one nearby.”</p><p>The duck’s instincts were soon proven correct as, out of nowhere, a massive suit of armor suddenly slammed down into the ground in front of them; it’s limbs freely hovering around it as it towered above them all, with fists the size of cars that promptly swung at the group.</p><p>“SCATTER!” Donald shouted as they all narrowly avoided the attack.</p><p>The trio simply ran around in a panic for a bit, ducking and dodging the monster’s attacks while getting in small retaliations where they could, but it quickly became apparent they weren’t making too much headway on beating the thing.</p><p>The monster was too big for any one of them to fight on their own, they needed to work together as a team if they wanted to have any hope of defeating this thing. Luckily Donald excelled in that regard; quickly coming up with a plan, the mage turned to his friend.</p><p>“Goofy! I’m gonna try and freeze some of it’s limbs! On my mark, you move in and shatter it!”</p><p>“Got it!” Goofy sounded off.</p><p>Donald quickly rushed in and slammed his staff against the creature’s body to get it’s attention, thanking the stars that Merlin had made the staff practically indestructible, and once he managed to accomplish that, Donald dodged it’s swing and cast out a massive freezing spell that pinned it’s arm to the ground in a block of ice.</p><p>“NOW!”</p><p>The dog leapt forward and brought the edge of his shield down onto the frozen limb, shattering it almost instantaneously from the blow. The creature reeled back from the attack, clearly damaged from losing an arm, but it was still kicking.</p><p>Donald looked over to see that the kid was currently working on the legs, staying on the move and using hit and run tactics to get in attacks where he could without giving the monster a chance to retaliate.</p><p>With the creature distracted, Donald took the opportunity to pause and charge up a larger fireball. One that he quickly launched at the beast the moment it was ready, blowing one of it’s legs to bits.</p><p>“HA!” Donald exclaimed right before he was swatted aside by the monster, sending him flying into a wall with a loud slam.</p><p>“HEY! YOU CAN’T TREAT MY FRIEND LIKE THAT!” Goofy shouted, throwing his shield at the armored creature’s remaining arm which caused it to fling back from the force, allowing the kid to leap up and cleave straight through it.</p><p>Donald groaned at the throbbing sensation in his head, cursing himself for never properly learning any healing spells, but he grit his teeth and shook it off. He never backed down before and he wasn’t about to start now.</p><p>The duck collected his staff off the ground and prepared a bout of thunder, smiling when he saw that Goofy and the kid had reduced the armored monster to nothing more than a torso.</p><p>“Eat this!” Donald exclaimed, hurling a bolt of lightning at the creature.</p><p>The titan reeled back when the electricity nailed him square in the chest, that lapse in focus was all Goofy and the kid needed to get an opening and lay a two way smack down onto the creature who soon burst into a flash of light, releasing a massive, glowing heart that soared into the night sky as the rest of it’s body dissipated.</p><p>“Okay. That. Had. To be. The. Last one.” The monkey said through shallow breaths. “Right?”</p><p>“I think so.” Donald replied, similarly exhausted. “Phew, that was a close one huh?”</p><p>“Yeah it was, who are you guys anyways?”</p><p>Goofy wrapped his arm around Donald and pulled him to his side. “The name’s Goofy Goof and this is my best friend in the whole world, Donald Duck. What about you?”</p><p>“Sora.” the kid replied.</p><p>“Well now that we’ve got introductions out of the way, would ya mind telling us where you got that?” Donald said, motioning to the keyblade.</p><p>“I don’t really know, my home was under attack by these weird shadow creatures-”</p><p>“The heartless.” Goofy corrected him.</p><p>“Is that what they’re called? Well anyways, my home on destiny islands was under attack by the heartless and suddenly this keyblade appeared in my hand. Then I fought off this huge heartless and the next thing I knew I woke up here!” Sora explained.</p><p>“Huh, well at least we didn’t have to go far to find you.” Donald said.</p><p>That prompted a confused look from Sora. “wait, you guys were looking for me?”</p><p>“Yup, we were told that the wielder of the keyblade could help us find our friend.” Goofy replied. “Hey, how about you come along with us? We can visit other worlds on our vessel.”</p><p>“Do you think you could help me find my friends too? Riku and Kairi?” Sora asked.</p><p>“Of course, you scratch our back and we’ll scratch yours.” Donald said with a nod.</p><p>“Okay, I guess.” Sora muttered with a frown.</p><p>Donald and Goofy looked at each other, while they may have just met the kid it didn’t feel right to see him so down so they decided to try and cheer him up with a little gag.</p><p>“But you can’t come along like that.” Donald muttered. “No frowning, no sad faces, our ship runs on happy ones.”</p><p>Goofy chuckled. “Yeah! you gotta look funny, like us!”</p><p>The kid let out a sigh and after a few moments of silence, he threw out possibly one of the most hilariously forced smiles that Donald had ever seen in his entire life; causing both him and Goofy to laugh.</p><p>“Now that’s one funny face!” The dog chortled.</p><p>Sora dropped the smile quickly but soon joined in on their laughter, quickly perking up just as they had intended to.</p><p>“Feel better now?” Donald asked</p><p>“Yeah, a little.” Sora replied. “Alright, I’ll go with you guys. I don’t see why not.”</p><p>“Great, come on now. The ship’s this way, I think.” Goofy said.</p><p>As they led Sora towards the gummi ship’s location, the knight leaned over to his mage friend.</p><p>“Hey Donald, are ya sure we can find the kid’s friends?”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “Who knows? But we need him if we want to find Mickey again.”</p><p>“I know, it just feels like we’re lying to him.” Goofy protested.</p><p>“Look, we need to focus on our own problems first; once we’ve found Mickey, then we can help Sora find his friends.” Donald stated. “Besides, chances are we might wind up running into them on our journey anyways so don’t worry about it.”</p><p>“I suppose, oh look we’re here!”</p><p>Upon seeing the gummi ship, Sora’s eyes lit up like a christmas tree and he absolutely wasted no time in making a bee-line straight for it and climbing aboard. Something Goofy was not pleased by.</p><p>“Hey now! Don’t go touching anything in there! I just buffed out the scratches from last time!”</p><p>Apparently Sora didn’t hear him as the ship’s reverse thrusters engaged and sent it flying backwards into one of the nearby buildings, causing Goofy to scream in frustration at having his ship damaged again in the exact same way in less than a day.</p><p>Donald could only sigh, this team was off to a wonderful start and he could already tell things were only going to get harder from here on out.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“Wait a second…. pink skin, weird hair, bumps on face...those things sound just like those weird monsters from uncle Donald’s wish!” Dewey exclaimed.</p><p>Huey gasped. “He’s right! That means they’re real!”</p><p>“Wait hold on, what wish? What are you guys talking about?” Questioned Lena.</p><p>“Oh right. You weren’t part of his fantasy and we never told you guys about it.” Webby said with a face palm. “Well it all started when we tried to recover the lost lamp of Collie baba…”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>how's that for an introductory arc chapter? Donald and Goofy have been reunited, had their first taste of combat with the heartless, and met their future adoptive son after a big battle!</p><p>I'm also surprised that none of you managed to guess the single ducktales character that's going to make an appearance outside of the original trio within the kingdom hearts timeline; I'll admit that oswald the lucky rabbit was a good guess but it's not him, feel free to keep guessing though!</p><p>until next time my friends!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. heart to heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“I think uncle Donald might be onto us.” Louie said as he hopped off his bed. The kids having gotten set up for another one of their late night readings of Donald’s adventures.</p><p>Webby looked up from her spot on the floor. “What makes you say that?”</p><p>“Haven’t you noticed how he’s been checking on us more often than usual? Asking all kinds of questions about what we’ve been up to? He’s getting suspicious.”</p><p>“Then we’ll just have to be more careful Louie.” Huey stated. “Because I am not going to stop reading uncle Donald’s journal, I need to know what happened in that alternate world.”</p><p>“Fair enough.”</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>It’s official, this has been the strangest adventure Donald has ever been on and given his past, that’s saying a lot.</p><p>He knew this universe was vast with numerous worlds in them, but he had no idea just how spectacular they really were up close. There was just so much to do, so much to see, so much excitement and danger around every single corner and he faced it all with his new friends</p><p>The first world they visited was called Wonderland, a weird storybook style place with ghostly cats and hoo-men that looked like cards (Donald actually had to get clarification that the card thing wasn’t normal for Sora’s species.), all of whom seemed to be bent on tormenting a poor little girl named Alice in a massive show trial. They had spent the better part of the day running around, fighting through wave after wave of heartless, essentially going out to solve a whole mystery in order to ‘prove’ Alice’s innocence. Even after they did prove the, rather obvious, truth that the heartless were responsible for Alice’s crimes; the card’s leader, the queen of hearts, decided to throw a temper tantrum and order for all of them to be killed. While they were fending off the cards, someone slipped by under the chaos and absconded with Alice; then they had to fend off a MASSIVE heartless that looked like something out of a weird carnival attraction just to leave the place. At least they figured out how the heartless were taking over worlds, they had been searching for ‘keyholes’ and using them to consume the hearts of the various worlds to destroy them; luckily Sora’s keyblade seemed to be able to seal off these keyholes to prevent that from happening.</p><p>Then came the Olympic coliseum where they fought for entrance into a heroes tournament, even meeting up with a guy called Hercules; who reminded Donald a whole lot of a certain immortal stork that was way too affectionate with him back home, at least this herc guy wasn’t as huggy as his avian counterpart. While Donald was suspicious of the fiery haired guy who gave them an entry ticket for the preliminaries, he was too focused on his own problems to care; besides, fighting off a cerberus would certainly make for an interesting story to tell.</p><p>After that they stopped by the jungle, oh how Donald hated jungles: they were hot, full of insects, and had plenty of places for predators and other baddies to jump out at you; the last of which happened with alarming frequency in this world. It certainly didn’t help that Sora crashed the gummi ship into that world after they had an argument regarding the importance of finding Mickey vs finding Sora’s friends, luckily after bringing down a big game hunter in an invisible mech suit they both came to realize that they were practically in the same boat and apologized for some things that they said.</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald realized he was starting to get attached to the boy, which was anything but a good thing. As tempting as it were to let himself get close to Sora, the undeniable fact that their presence in this world was nothing but temporary kept rearing its head time and time again.</p><p>He couldn’t form connections with any of the denizens here, at least nothing deeper than a professional one, it may have sounded cold but it was necessary; making friends would only make things hurt more when they inevitably had to leave this whole dimension behind to return to their own.</p><p>So Donald tried to distance himself from Sora, keep their interactions outside of their adventures and hero work as a minimum. The duck tried to convince himself that they were just working towards a common goal and their relationship didn’t run any deeper than that. Even when Sora saved him from being crushed by a massive lava rock flung at him by an evil genie by narrowly tackling the mage out of the way, Donald had to remind himself that he and the boy would soon have to part ways eventually.</p><p>‘Don’t get attached. Don’t get attached. Don’t get attached.’ Donald repeated to himself like a mantra.</p><p>Then the mage ended up disobeying that very rule he had set for himself when the group was swallowed by a whale.</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“Oh.” Donald moaned as he rubbed his aching head. “That was not a smooth landing.”</p><p>“You said it. Is everyone okay?” Goofy groaned.</p><p>“I think so.”</p><p>It had been the craziest thing, one minute they’re traveling through the empty void of space with smiles on their faces and light in their hearts, then the next minute this absolutely massive whale shows up out of nowhere and devours them in one bite; sending the gummi ship, along with Donald, Sora, and Goofy inside of it, tumbling down the whale’s gullet. It was a miracle the ship was still in one piece and nobody was seriously injured after such a rough ride</p><p>Sora kicked open the door to the gummi ship and headed outside. “Where are we anyways?”</p><p>Donald and Goofy followed shortly after and almost immediately wrinkled their beak and nose at the disgusting scent that hit them. The air absolutely reeked, it smelled like rotten meat that had been left out in the hot sun for too long, Donald very nearly gagged right then and there. Once they managed to get used to it, the duo gazed at the red, fleshy walls of the whale’s innards.</p><p>“I reckon we’re inside of the stomach of that big whale that swallowed us.” Goofy said.</p><p>“I think we knew that already Goofy, the real question is how do we- OW!” Donald yelped in pain when a gold and purple box impacted against his head, worsening his already existing headache.</p><p>Goofy yelped and held his shield above his head as cover, narrowly managing to block the second box that came plummeting from above.</p><p>Donald’s head snapped up and noticed a figure standing on top of a wall of flesh that served as a cliff, hunched over and rooting through a chest while tossing out boxes haphazardly.</p><p>“Hey! Who’s up there?!”</p><p>To their surprise, a little boy peered over the edge with a shy but curious expression; one that seemed to brighten up at the sight of them.</p><p>“Oh, Hi there! My name’s Pinocchio! Did Monstro swallow you guys too?” The boy asked.</p><p>“You mean the whale? Yeah!” Sora replied. “You wouldn’t happen to know a way out of here, would you?”</p><p>Pinocchio smiled and nodded. “I think so, follow me! You might be able to help us!”</p><p>The boy heaved a large green block into his arms and started walking deeper into the bowels of the whale, the trio of heroes trailing behind him through the remains of other of fortunate vessels that had been devoured by the whale until they came upon an old, wooden fishing boat that was still intact with an elderly man pacing around the poop deck, one who immediately smiled when Pinnochio showed up.</p><p>“Oh there you are Pinocchio! What have you got there?” Asked the man.</p><p>“With this, we can get out of here father!” Pinocchio replied with a smile.</p><p>“Really? With this big block? You think so?”</p><p>“Well it’s a gummi block, so I can probably help ya get it working!” Goofy said.</p><p>The boy and the man presumed to be his father turned around to see Donald, Goofy, and Sora climb aboard the ship.</p><p>“Oh my, more travelers. I suppose you all got swallowed by the whale as well.” the elderly man stated</p><p>“Looks like it, so how did you two get here?”</p><p>“Well my name is Geppeto and I’m Pinocchio’s father. We got separated sometime ago due to-”</p><p>At that point Donald tuned out the old man’s story, Sora and Goofy could always fill him in on the details later if he missed anything important, choosing to focus upon the craftsmanship on the vessel Geppeto inhabited while questioning how it’s possible that a fishing boat could possibly travel through space. Eventually his gaze fell upon a small figure sitting on a nearby table and Donald had to do a double take to ensure that he was seeing things properly, for resting on that table was a rather dapper looking cricket in a tuxedo jacket with matching shoes and a top hat who was furiously scribbling away in a tiny notebook. The grasshopper seemed to realize that he was being watched and looked up to meet Donald’s gaze with his own, oddly enough he didn’t seem to be too alarmed by the fact that a giant duck was practically burning holes in the side of his head.</p><p>“Oh hello, I didn’t notice you there!” The six inch tall insect said. “My name is Jiminy Cricket, nice to meet ya!”</p><p>‘Talking bugs? Okay, why not?’ Donald thought to himself before speaking. “Donald Duck, are you with Pinocchio?”</p><p>“Yep, I’m the boy’s conscience. It’s my job to teach him right from wrong, keep him safe, and make sure he stays on the straight and narrow.” Jiminy replied.</p><p>“Well you don’t seem to be very good at it.”</p><p>The cricket pouted. “What makes you say that?”</p><p>“Other than the fact that you’ve both been swallowed by a whale, Pinoccio just wandered away from the ship.” Donald deadpanned.</p><p>“WHAT?!” Jiminy exclaimed as he quickly hopped over to the ship’s railing just in time to see the aforementioned boy’s form disappear into a dark tunnel leading into what Donald assumed to be the whale’s intestinal tract.</p><p>“Pinocch, where are you going?! Pinocch!” the cricket called after him.</p><p>“Pinocchio!” Geppeto wailed, finally noticing his son’s absence and rushing over to Donald and Jiminy’s spot on the railing. “Oh I told him not to wander off while we were here, he can be so naughty sometimes but he’s still very precious to me.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, we’ll go and get him back for ya!” Goofy stated.</p><p>“We will?” Sora said with confusion.</p><p>“Sure! It should only take a couple of minutes, we’ll be back with yer son lickedy split!”</p><p>Geppeto grabbed the dog’s arm and started shaking it so hard Donald thought it might come off. “Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”</p><p>“Well what are we waiting for?” Jiminy hopped onto Sora’s shoulder. “After him! Quick.”</p><p>The boy blinked at the talking cricket. “Is that a-”</p><p>“Just go with it.” Donald interrupted.</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>They did not find Pinocchio lickedy split, in fact their search took far longer than any of them expected it to.</p><p>When they walked into the dark cavern that Pinocchio had vanished into, the trio found themselves inside a massive technicolor maze composed of several chambers separated by mist filled tunnels which made up the whale’s innards. Navigating them proved more than difficult since all the chambers looked more or less the same with only minute differences setting them apart, no matter how far they walked or how many chambers they traveled through, one of them were able to shake the feeling that they were just going in circles. Even more frustrating was the fact that Monstro had also swallowed several heartless who had decided that the labyrinthian like structure of the whale’s intestines made for a perfect home for them and they weren’t too keen on the heroes intruding in on their living space; so not only were they lost, but they kept having to fight off wave after wave of heartless that were crawling around in the chambers of the whale’s guts. To top it all off, they had been searching for nearly an hour now and they still couldn’t seem to find Pinocchio anywhere, neither hide nor hair of him showed up.</p><p>“Gah this is useless!” Donald groaned as he blasted another heartless. “I swear we’ve been through this chamber at least three times now!”</p><p>“We can’t give up now! Geppeto is depending on us to find his boy!” Goofy exclaimed as he swatted a crowd of heartless that tried to rush him.</p><p>“You sure do seem adamant about helping the guy out. Even more than we do.”</p><p>Goofy shrugged. “I just...we’re kinda the same Donald.”</p><p>Donald shot his friend a confused look.</p><p>“The way Geppeto talked about his son, it reminded me a lot of how me and Maxie are.” Goofy explained. “If I was in his shoes right now, I’d be losing my head too.”</p><p>The duck nodded in understanding, if there was one thing he knew for certain about the dog: it was that he loved his son more than anything else in the world.</p><p>“You’ll see him again Goofy, I know you will.”</p><p>“I hope so.”</p><p>After a few more minutes of combat, the trio managed to clear out all of the heartless in the chamber. Although the knowledge that they hadn’t gotten any closer to finding the lost boy frustrated all of them to no end.</p><p>“Come on Pinocchio!” Sora called out. “This is no time to be playing games!”</p><p>“But Sora, I thought you liked playing games.” A new voice teased from behind them.</p><p>Looking over their shoulders, the heroes were met with the sight of another hoo-man child that looked to be a bit older than Sora. He had long grey hair that reached down to his shoulders with a yellow vest covering his torso that had black straps forming an X over his chest, dark blue jeans decorated his legs coupled with white and blue sneakers, and a pair of fingerless gloves on his hands completed the outfit.</p><p>The kid smirked. “Or are you too cool to play them now that you have the keyblade?”</p><p>“Riku?” Sora stuttered.</p><p>Goofy looked and Donald and mouthed ‘Riku?’ in confusion.</p><p>‘Wait, wasn’t that one of the lost friends Sora mentioned?’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” the brown haired kid continued.</p><p>“Just playing with Pinocchio.”</p><p>It was at that moment that the group realized two important things: the first of which was that Riku had Pinocchio’s limp form tucked under his arm; the second being that, upon further examination, Pinocchio wasn’t a real boy but rather a living puppet.</p><p>Or at least he used to be a living puppet, he didn’t seem to be moving in Riku’s arms at all. But Donald sincerely hoped that the boy was just unconscious.</p><p>Sora didn’t seem to care much however. “You know what I mean! I meant Kairi, did you find her?”</p><p>“Since when do you care?” Riku huffed. “All you’ve been doing lately is running around with your new friends, going on adventures, and showing off that keyblade of yours.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Don’t act dumb. You’ve been messing around while I’ve been busy trying to save Kairi, some friend you are.”</p><p>“Hey! That’s not true, I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys!” Sora protested.</p><p>The silver haired teen merely scoffed. “Save it, lying was never your strong suit Sora. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a friend to save.”</p><p>“Hang on a minute there, what are you doing with Pinocchio?” Goofy questioned.</p><p>“The puppet? Well he’s rather unusual, not many puppets have hearts. I’m not sure, but maybe he can help somebody who’s lost theirs.”</p><p>Donald did not like the implications of that. “I don’t care who you are or what you’ve got planned for Pinocchio, hand him over before somebody really gets hurt.”</p><p>“Why don’t you make me, you mumbling moron?” Riku shot back</p><p>The duck froze at that remark.</p><p>There were three things you never, ever, mocked Donald for lest you face the full fury of his anger: his family, his temper, and his voice; emphasis on the last one.</p><p>The duck let out a low growl, his face turning red as he grit his teeth. He didn’t care that this was Sora’s friend, he didn’t care about the possible consequences that would arise from hurting him, and he didn’t care about Riku’s plan. Nobody insulted his voice and got away with it.</p><p>“Mumbling?! I’ll show you mumbling!” Donald screamed as he fired an ice spell at Riku.</p><p>(anger or not, the mage didn’t want to hurt Pinocchio and using a fire or thunder spell near a wooden doll wouldn’t end well)</p><p>Unfortunately, Riku’s reflexes were on point as he managed to flawlessly dodge the cold beam and take off into the maze of guts.</p><p>“Hey! Get back here!”</p><p>What followed next was what would have been considered to be a humorous chase scene if it wasn’t for the fact that a child’s life hung in the balance. The trio of heroes pursed Riku throughout Monstro, darting back and forth, up and down, round and round through the whale’s insides while trying to keep pace with the yellow vested teen.</p><p>As they chased him down, Donald noticed something rather concerning about the boy. When running past the crowds of heartless that they didn’t manage to clear out, the shadowy creatures almost completely ignored Riku and instead focused on the trio of heroes; Donald didn’t completely understand the mind of a heartless, but he did know that they weren’t too picky on who they attacked as long as they had a strong heart which only raised questions about Riku’s nature.</p><p>Questions he’d save for later as he was starting to run out of breath and Riku was pulling head.</p><p>“Enough of this.” Donald huffed, readying a spell. “FREEZE!”</p><p>The mage lobbed the ball of magic frost towards Riku, which harmlessly sailed over the teens head without so much as skimming his hair.</p><p>“Ha! Your aim is awfuuuu-” Riku didn’t get out another word as he realized a bit too late that Donald had hit exactly what he had been aiming for when he slipped on a patch of ice that had been created directly in front of him</p><p>The silver haired teen tried to keep his footing on the slick surface but it was a futile effort as his momentum carried him forward and caused him to land on his butt as he kept sliding all the way across the ice. In the process, Riku lost his grip on Pinocchio and the puppet tumbled onto the ice and slid away from his former captor. Both boys wound up going straight into a hole that dropped down into Monstro’s stomach.</p><p>The only reason they weren’t digested by the stomach acids below was the fact that both Riku and Pinocchio landed safely on a mass of flesh that served as a sort of island in the center of the beast’s belly, keeping them relatively safe from harm when they did hit the ground. Pinocchio’s limp form slammed into the middle of the flesh mound while Riku tumbled over to the edge, the silver haired teen just barely stopping himself before he could fall into the stomach acid.</p><p>By the time he managed to recover, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were already on him, having used several conveniently placed growths on the walls of Monstro’s stomach as makeshift platforms to hop to the bottom. The trio put themselves between the hoo-man boy and Pinocchio in a gambit to protect the living puppet.</p><p>Jimmy Cricket wasted absolutely no time in rushing over to his friend to check on him, but Donald paid him little mind as his focus was on the silver haired teen in front of him.</p><p>“Alright, you got me. But it doesn’t have to be this way Sora.” Riku pleaded. “How about it Sora? Let’s join forces to save Kairi, we can do it together.”</p><p>Donald was concerned for a moment, worried that Sora might actually take Riku up on his offer. But that feeling was quickly squashed when the spiky haired boy pulled out his key blade and got into a combat stance, both Donald and Goofy following suit.</p><p>“What? You’d rather fight me? Over a puppet without a heart?”</p><p>“Heart or no heart. At least he still has a conscience. You might not hear it, but right now it’s loud and clear.” Sora said with conviction, leveling his keyblade at Riku. “and it’s telling me you’re on the wrong side.”</p><p>Donald didn’t know why, but he felt an odd sense of pride well up in his chest when he saw Sora speaking with such force to his words.</p><p>Riku grit his teeth. “Fine, have it your way Sora.”</p><p>Everyone stood at the ready for a few moments, the trio of heroes facing down Riku, all of them just waiting for the opposing side to charge forward and make the first move. What nobody saw coming, however, was the arrival of an uninvited guest that wound up being the one to break the stand off.</p><p>The creature appeared out of nowhere, seemingly falling from the sky itself and slamming down onto the flesh mound, knocking Sora, Donald, and Goofy off their feet from the force of the impact itself while Riku merely stumbled.</p><p>Once they regained their bearings, the group found themselves face to face with some kind of giant monster with a heartless insignia upon its chest...or at least Donald thought that was it’s chest, it was hard to tell with the way it was built.</p><p>The thing looked like some weird, two-headed plant monster that completely towered all over all of them. One large head with a gaping maw was on the bottom of the heartless’ body while a smaller head with a jagged mouth rested on top, a pair of long tentacles were sprouting out from the latter which had three fingered hands on the ends of them. The beast let out a roar and started to attack the group.</p><p>Clearly seeing an opportunity present itself, Riku decided to make his escape right then and there. A shadowy portal opened up behind the teen, who quickly stepped into it and vanished; leaving the heroes behind to deal with the monster by themselves.</p><p>“Riku!” Sora cried.</p><p>Donald grabbed the boy’s arm. “Forget him! We’ve got bigger problems to worry about right now!”</p><p>Sora solemnly nodded before his expression turned into one of startlement as he jumped out of the way, Donald turned around in confusion just in time to see one of the heartless’ tentacles come down and swat him to the side like a bug.</p><p>The duck went flying and landed precariously on the edge of the flesh mound with a loud thump, his head spinning from the blow. He was quickly brought out of it when a burning sensation shot up his arm and he jerked his hands up in response, cringing at the sight of his acid-burned fingertips that were practically buzzing with pain. But Donald grit his teeth and powered through it, he picked up his staff and readied a fire spell only to freeze in place when the monster spun around and revealed that Pinocchio was now trapped within its mouth.</p><p>‘Darn it. I can’t use my magic on this thing, I might hit the kid!’ Donald dissipated the spell. ‘But I have to do something! I can’t just stand around!’</p><p>That’s when Donald spied the spiral stem coming out of the top of the monster, flopping around as Goofy and Sora dueled with the beast who seemed to be making a conscious effort to protect the growth every time either of the heroes got close to it. Which meant it must have been important to the thing.</p><p>A crazy plan started to form in Donald’s mind. ‘Think, how should I get up-’</p><p>He mentally trailed off when he saw that some of the growths on the sides of Monstro’s stomach were arranged in such a way that they formed a staircase right next to the monster’s head.</p><p>‘That’ll work’ the mage thought to himself.</p><p>Thankfully, Goofy and Sora had the monster’s complete and undivided attention as the former tried to force its mouth open to rescue the boy while the latter kept hacking away at it with his keyblade, which meant it didn’t even notice Donald slowly but surely climbing up the walls of Monstro’s stomach until the duck let out a battle cry and jumped right on top of it’s head.</p><p>Donald quickly wrapped his hands around the creature's stem and yanked it as hard as he could, the beast immediately howled in pain and opened its lower jaw as it flailed about, trying to buck Donald off. But the duck held on tight, never reletning his hold even as the monster swung him around</p><p>Eventually the lower mouth of the heartless opened so wide that Goofy managed to slip through its teeth and snatch Pinocchio from the beast’s grasp, and with the boy safely out of range Donald decided that now would be a good time to let loose. The mage reached around with one hand, while keeping the other on the creature’s stem, and retrieved the staff slung over his back.</p><p>“THUNDER!” The duck cried out as he slammed his staff down onto the heartless, a bolt of lightning shooting straight down into it.</p><p>The creature’s screams grew even louder as electricity coursed through its body, sparks flying across its form as a plume of smoke started leaking out of it’s lower mouth. Donald was quite literally roasting it from the inside out.</p><p>But it wasn’t enough to put the creature down, luckily a few strokes of Sora’s keyblade took care of the problem really quick. The teen’s weapon sliced through the stunned monster right as it managed to fling Donald off, the duck landing safely on the ground with a quick tuck and roll, while the heartless let out one last gurgle of pain before exploding into a bright flash of light and releasing the heart trapped within.</p><p>There was no rest for the wiry however, as once they had defeated the monster, the whole chamber started to churn and shake. It was at that moment that the trio realized that having a fierce brawl inside of a whale’s stomach was a really good way of getting it to toss up it’s lunch and with the way the whole place was rumbling, it seemed as though old Monstro was about to blow chunks.</p><p>“GET TO THE SHIP! HURRY!” Goofy exclaimed as he and his friends quickly rushed out of the stomach with Pinocchio and Jiminy in tow, none of them wanting to stick around to see what a whale throwing up looked like from the inside of the beast.</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Donald watched Monstro’s retreating form swim off into the void, the duck sighed in relief and slumped back into his seat aboard the gummi ship.</p><p>It had been a really close call, the group just narrowly managing to toss Geppeto his son and hop aboard their own vessel before Monstro spat all of them out. Both of their ships were sent flying into space like they had been fired from a cannon, each spiraling completely out of control in the process. The fact that all of them got away from the ordeal without so much as a scratch was nothing short of a miracle.</p><p>Then again, the ride that had resulted from Monstro vomiting them up had left Goofy looking a little green around the gills and the dog was now in the ship’s bathroom emptying his stomach contents, so saying they got away without a scratch was a bit of a stretch. At least the autopilot kept the ship steady while he was gone.</p><p>But apart from that, they were all safe and sound...at least for the time being. Knowing his luck, it was only a matter of time before they had to go up against new foes that would likely be backed up with more heartless, especially with that Riku kid running around.</p><p>Donald frowned at the thought of him, he had only known Sora’s friend for less than an hour and he already didn’t like him. The kid seemed arrogant, cold hearted, and jealous; not to mention that there was just something...sinister, about him that Donald couldn’t quite put his finger on.</p><p>Why someone like Sora would ever be friends with Riku was beyond him.</p><p>“Riku…” Sora softly said, his vision locked on the whale swimming away from their ship.</p><p>“So that was one of your friends huh? The ones you lost?”</p><p>Sora looked back towards the duck and solemnly nodded.</p><p>Donald scoffed. “Some friend, you two finally see each other again and the first thing he does is act like you don’t even care about him.”</p><p>“He wasn’t always like that…”</p><p>“Really? He wasn’t always a jerk?”</p><p>“NO!” Sora snapped. “He was- he is my best friend! We’ve been together since we were kids. Sure we always liked to compete with each other, have races, sword fights, but we were friends first and rivals second...he never acted like this! I thought he’d be happy to see me again, I can’t...I don’t...I don’t understand…”</p><p>The spiky haired kid finally broke down and started to sob in frustration, all the pressure of this new situation he had been slingshotted into finally overwhelming him. To which Donald frowned at.</p><p>For all the maturity and courage he’s demonstrated, for all the foes he’s faced down, for all the heroism the kid had performed, Donald had forgotten that Sora was still just that: a kid. True, Donald had gotten far used to this sort of treatment by the time he was Sora’s age but that was as a result of being the nephew of the world’s greatest adventurer, he was used to it; Sora on the other hand had this life thrown at him, his peaceful existence abruptly interrupted by a conflict he didn’t even fully understand, one that might have very well cost him his best friend.</p><p>Donald knew Sora needed help, so he comforted him the only way he knew how and wrapped the hoo-man up in a hug.</p><p>“Hey, it’ll be okay. Everything will be fine.” The duck whispered</p><p>Sora threw his arms around Donald and squeezed, hard. “Why is he doing this? Why? I want to save Kairi as badly as he does!”</p><p>Donald didn’t quite know the answer to that question, he didn’t know Riku as well as Sora did and couldn’t explain why the silver haired teen seemed to turn against his so called ‘best friend’. But Sora needed an answer, if for no other reason than to give him peace of mind so they could keep moving forward and find their friends. It took Donald a few minutes, but he came up with something that seemed to make sense.</p><p>“Maybe he’s just scared and desperate, like you are.” The duck said.</p><p>Sora pulled away from Donald and looked at him in confusion, his eyes still shimmering with tears.</p><p>“Look, when kids like you and Riku-”</p><p>“Hey! I’m not a kid! I’m almost fifteen!” Sora protested, interrupting Donald</p><p>Donald paused. “Seriously? I thought you were around ten or twelve!”</p><p>“No! I’m fourteen!”</p><p>“Okay we’re getting off topic.” The mage shook off his stupor. “My point is that when people like you and Riku get thrown into a situation like this, where everything is new and scary, where you have to risk your life on a regular basis in order to fight for what’s right, it can be overwhelming.”</p><p>“But Riku’s strong and brave! he wouldn’t-”</p><p>“It’s even more overwhelming when you have to face it alone, Sora.” Donald interjected.</p><p>That shut up the teen almost immediately.</p><p>“You might have had great friends like me and Goofy to help you out on this journey, to watch your back and keep you safe. But Riku might not have, he might have been flung into a world he couldn’t understand and was forced to face the hardship it brought all by himself without his best friend there to help him. Being alone in a dark place like that can bring out the worst in a person, I would know.”</p><p>“He’s right Sora.” A new voice said.</p><p>Sora and Donald’s gaze turned to the source and both of them jumped back when they saw Jiminy Cricket sitting on the ship’s control panel.</p><p>“What the- how did you get in here?!” Donald shouted.</p><p>“I hitched a ride in Sora’s hood.” the cricket explained.</p><p>“Why would you do that?” Asked Sora.</p><p>“I’m supposed to help those in need, show them right from wrong and keep them from getting themselves into too much trouble and friend, you are in definite need of someone like me to help you through this whole adventure.”</p><p>“But what about Pinocchio? Aren’t you supposed to be watching over him?”</p><p>Jiminy shrugged. “I was, but when we were escaping from that whale he made a pretty good case for you guys and how you needed me more than he did. Besides, I feel like that boy will be just fine on his own from now on. He’ll be safe in Traverse Town with his father.”</p><p>“Well…” Donald stroked his chin. “I suppose an extra set of hands wouldn’t hurt.”</p><p>“Thank you, but back to the matter at hand. Your friend is probably going through a rough time in his new surroundings and has just lost his way, it’s your job to set him straight again. If he’s really your best friend I have no doubt you’ll be able to get through to him.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah you’re right!” Sora exclaimed. “And Riku said he knows where Kairi is! If we can find him again we can find her too!”</p><p>“That’s the spirit Sora!” Donald cheered. “Now let’s-”</p><p>A beeping sound from the ship’s controls drew the collective attention of the room, alerting them all that another world was coming up rather quickly; by the looks of it, an ocean based one.</p><p>“Get ready for our next adventure, we’ll be landing soon.”</p><p>“Where? In the ocean? We’ll drown!”</p><p>Donald shook his head. “No we won’t, not with that transformation spell genie taught me back in Agrabah. Trust me, as long as you have me and Goofy by your side there isn’t anything we can’t handle. Speaking of, can you go get Goofy out of the bathroom and tell him to get ready?”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>As the boy walked off, Donald realized a rather unfortunate truth: he had gotten attached to Sora. In spite of his best efforts to distance himself, Sora had managed to worm his way into Donald’s heart and establish himself as a friend...or maybe even a son. Which meant things would only hurt more when Goofy and Donald had to return to their own world again.</p><p>The duck quickly shook off these thoughts, they’d cross that bridge when they got to it, in the meantime he just had to do everything he could to prepare Sora for the day they’d have to move on and evict themselves from his life. It was the least he could do for the kid and the duck was sure he’d have plenty of time to do it, it’s not like there would be anything that would abruptly split them apart.</p><p>‘Still, I really have to stop adopting kids like this. First April, May, and June and now Sora.’ Donald thought to himself as he got the shapeshifting spell ready. ‘I’m not cut out to be a dad just yet.’</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Huey stopped mid sentence when a loud crunching sound resonated throughout the room.</p><p>Looking over to the side, he saw that Dewey had gotten a piece of wood from seeming nowhere and was now biting down into it with a rather green-eyed expression on his face.</p><p>“Ooh boy, you’re getting jealous again aren’t you?” Louie remarked.</p><p>Dewey released the wood from his beak. “No I’m not, so what if uncle Donald used to spend time with a bunch of other kids before us, that he had like a bajillion other adopted sons and daughters?! I don’t care, he’s his own duck, he be a dad to whoever he-”</p><p>The board in Dewey’s hands suddenly snapped in two, the blue triplet having been applying more and more pressure with every word he growled out.</p><p>Louie rolled his eyes. “Yep, you’re jealous.”</p><p>“NO I’M NOT!!!” Dewey screamed as he leapt onto his green counterpart and started laying into him.</p><p>“I guess we’ll have to cut our reading short and pick in back up tomorrow.” Huey sighed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>FINALLY GOT THE NEXT CHAPTER POSTED!</p><p>I'm sorry this took so long, school has been kicking my butt lately and the place I used to work at just opened back up so I'll have a job to worry about again; that and an uncooperative muse has meant that banging out this chapter has been slow going. I can't promise that the next chapter will be quicker but I'll do my best to get it out as soon as I can.</p><p>And when I said that I'd be glossing over a lot of the plot of kingdom hearts, that included a lot of the worlds; I know you guys can be a bit attached to them and I certainly understand why but, no offense, they're more fun nostalgia trips than anything else and few of them actually contribute to the main plot (again, no offense to the kingdom hearts fans) plus covering every single world would take way too long.</p><p>Also you've probably been noticing the chapter count increasing, I'm going to say right here and now that I've finally gotten all of the story planned out and 40 chapters is all there is to expect; don't worry, I've got a lot of cool stuff planned for the remainder of this story coming up.</p><p>Anyways, Hollow Bastion is coming up next along with the end of the kingdom hearts 1 arc. Then it's on to kingdom hearts 2.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Hollow Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“Hey uncle Donald? Can I ask you something?”</p><p>The aforementioned sailor looked down at the middle child of the triplets, the young duck wearing an expression of nervousness and concern that was rarely seen on his otherwise energetic and boisterous persona.</p><p>Donald didn’t like it, so he placed down the materials he had planned on using to tune up the houseboat that he had...‘borrowed’ from Scrooge and turned to address Dewey.</p><p>“Sure, is something wrong?” The sailor said as he kneeled down to be eye level with his kid.</p><p>“No, no, everything’s normal.” Dewey said while tugging at his shirt. “It’s just that...you love us don’t you?”</p><p>Donald frowned. “Of course I do! Why would you even ask that?”</p><p>“And, you wouldn’t abandon us? Right? Not even for some other kids?” Dewey continued.</p><p>“No, you’re my kids first and foremost, nothing will ever change that.” Donald replied, taking note of the oddly worded question. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong Dewey? You can always trust me.”</p><p>“I’m fine, really! I just wanted to check.”</p><p>Before Donald could probe the blue duck any further, Dewey quickly lunged forward and gave his uncle a tight and rather possessive hug before scampering off into the mansion.</p><p>Donald narrowed his eyes. “That was...odd, even for Dewey.”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“We’re here fellas!” Goofy exclaimed, hopping off the gummi ship.</p><p>Sora looked around. “And where is ‘here’, exactly?”</p><p>“Hollow Bastion apparently, at least according to this old map we stole from captain Hook.” Donald replied.</p><p>It had taken a whole lot of effort to get here and to be honest, even with all he had seen in the past, getting turned into a mermaid and then a mummy was one of the more interesting experiences he had gone through; it certainly didn’t help that he also had to participate in several unnecessary musical numbers while as a mermaid and fight alongside a talking skeleton to beat the boogieman when he was a mummy. Going up against a pirate with a fairy and a boy dressed like robin hood who taught them all how to fly was just the cherry on top of this weird adventure sundae.</p><p>Seriously, the Caballeros were never gonna believe any of this when he got home. But those were thoughts for later, right now he had to focus on the task at hand.</p><p>In a vast contrast to the colorful and whimsical worlds that they had spent the last few days traversing, Hollow bastion was far darker and more grim with an eerie mist surrounding the area. The abandoned castle in the distance certainly didn’t help matters at all, the structure standing tall and foreboding like it was daring them to tackle the trials that lay within. If Donald knew anything about old castles like this one, there WERE going to be trials that they’d have to face with the stone walls; but he wasn’t worried, as long as they stuck with each other and worked as a team, they could beat anything this world could throw at them.</p><p>Even so, Donald still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were going to be pushed to their breaking points here.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, Donald spotted Goofy with a bit of an uncertain look on his face.</p><p>“You feel it too don’t you? Like something really bad is going to happen?”</p><p>Goofy nodded. “Yup, maybe we should stick close and-”</p><p>The dog cut himself off mid sentence when he saw that Sora had ran ahead and was already climbing his way up the cliffs surrounding the castle.</p><p>“Consarn that boy. Hang on Sora!”</p><p>“Yeah, wait for us!”</p><p>The duo quickly ran up and started climbing after their third member, only for all three of them to pause when a loud roar followed by the sounds of clashing blades to start echoing from the top of the rock formation.</p><p>Goofy looked at Donald who shrugged and kept climbing. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”</p><p>Unfortunately when the heroes did reach the top, the duck couldn’t have been more wrong. What they saw was the very end of a battle between a massive hairy beast with huge fangs, claws, and horns and-</p><p>“RIKU?” Sora shouted, getting the aforementioned teen’s attention.</p><p>Riku turned around with a sinister smile. “So you finally made it, about time. I was starting to think you’d never show up.”</p><p>“What do you want?” Donald growled. “Last time we saw you, you threw us into a pirate brig and ran off.”</p><p>“Just what is rightfully mine.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Sora asked.</p><p>“The kingdom key Sora, it can’t have two weilders.” The silver haired teen stated. “You’ve done a great job with it so far, but your part is over. Let the keyblade choose it’s true master.”</p><p>Riku raised his hand and to nearly everyone’s surprise, the kingdom key literally flew out of Sora’s grip and found it’s way into Riku’s possession.</p><p>“What?!” Goofy and Donald shouted in surprise, jaws nearly hitting the floor.</p><p>“Maleficent was right.” Riku said as he turned the keyblade over in his hand. “You don’t have what it takes to save Kairi, it’s up to me. Only a true keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world.”</p><p>“But- But that’s impossible!” Sora stuttered out. “I’m the one who fought his way here with the keyblade.”</p><p>Riku chuckled. “You were just the delivery boy Sora. But if you really wanna keep pretending like you’re the hero, go play with this.”</p><p>The teenage hoo-man tossed a wooden sword at Sora’s feet who promptly collapsed on his hands and knees in despair, having lost the one thing that made him feel special.</p><p>Which made Donald feel all the more guilty about what him and Goofy had to do next.</p><p>It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, they were supposed to stick together until the very end of this adventure, find Mickey, and open a portal back to their homeworld after a tearful goodbye. Not abandon the poor boy in the middle of some dingy old castle after he had been stripped of his power and leave him with nothing.</p><p>But what choice did he have? Sure Riku had basically stolen the kingdom key from Sora and had made several attempts on their lives, but Merlin said that the only way to find Mickey again would be to follow the kingdom key which just so happened to be in Riku’s possession. Even if he hated the boy, Riku was the only lead they had to finding their rodent friend.</p><p>He hesitated at first of course, he never wanted to have to come to a crossroads where he’d have to choose between two of his best friends: Mickey and Sora. If he had his way he’d try and go for them both, but that’s just not the way the world worked.</p><p>Donald sucked in a breath and turned too Goofy. “Come on Goofy, let’s go.”</p><p>The duck didn’t see it, but he could feel Sora’s head snapping up in disbelief at his friend’s words, the boy’s blue eyes begging him not to abandon him.</p><p>Donald didn’t look at him, he knew that he looked at Sora now it would break him and he’d lose focus on what was important.</p><p>“What? But what about-”</p><p>“You remember why we started this whole journey right? To find Mickey?”</p><p>“Well I know Merlin said that we had to follow the kingdom key and all. But...are we really doing the right thing here?” Goofy replied with a guilty tone</p><p>“If we stay with Sora, we might never see Mickey again. Do you really want that?” Donald muttered as he tried to fight back tears.</p><p>Goofy hung his head. “No…”</p><p>“Then let’s go.”</p><p>As the duo walked away, Donald could hear Sora start to cry. He knew he shouldn’t turn around but the mage couldn’t stop himself and his heart nearly tore in two on the spot; Sora looked completely pitiful, tears streaming down his face with an expression that looked as sad as four year old finding out their puppy just got hit by a car.</p><p>“Please, don’t leave me.” Sora whimpered</p><p>He wanted to turn around and run back to Sora, to let him know that he wasn’t going to abandon him and that everything was going to be okay. But he couldn’t, he had a mission to focus on and he couldn’t let an unhealthy attachment to an amazing kid that he had only known for a few days, one that he had formed a strong bond with, get in the way of that mission.</p><p>Instead the duck steeled his resolve and simply replied. “I’m sorry Sora….we need to find our friend.”</p><p>On that note Donald and Goofy turned around and never looked back, catching up to Riku shortly after who shot them a grin that made Donald want to puke.</p><p>“You made the right choice, Sora was weak. He didn’t have the strength to do what needed to be done to save his friends, to save your friend.”</p><p>Donald huffed. “Just lead the way already.”</p><p>Riku nodded and opened a dark portal that led into the heart of the castle, Donald and Goofy following him inside while trying to bite back tears.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>The deeper they got into Hollow Bastion, the more Donald questioned if they really had picked the right side in this fight.</p><p>Once they were inside the castle, Riku introduced Donald and Goofy to Maleficent who certainly lived up to her name; within minutes of meeting her, the duck became acutely aware of the menacing aura the woman possessed. It certainly didn’t help matters that the dark sorceress reminded him so much of Magica De Spell in all the wrong ways.</p><p>After the initial introduction, things only went downhill from there on out. Apparently Riku and Maleficent had been kidnapping, or rather ‘collecting’ as they called it, various princesses who were referred to as ‘the seven princesses of heart’ many of whom Donald and Goofy had run into during their various travels only to lose track of them later.</p><p>‘Well at least we finally know where Alice and Jasmine wound up.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>Apparently, the purity of the princesses’ hearts were the key to opening the final keyhole which in turn would grant access to ‘kingdom hearts’, whatever that was. Donald didn’t really understand most of it, all he knew is that Riku swore up and down that once they unlocked kingdom hearts, they would be able to find Mickey again.</p><p>Donald wanted to believe the kid, he did have the keyblade that was supposed to lead straight to Mickey after all, but he couldn’t help but hold his doubts regarding the truth to Riku’s claims; that doubt wasn’t enough to get him to turn against the kingdom key wielder but it was there.</p><p>As for now, the duo had been stuck with guard duty to ensure that no outside forces would interfere while Riku and Maleficent were busy ensuring that their plan would come to fruition. It was rather strange walking through the same halls as the heartless and not being attacked by them, but Donald wasn’t going to complain.</p><p>He was, however, going to continue to wallow in his own guilt as he patrolled the halls of Hollow Bastion with Goofy at his side.</p><p>“You’re still thinkin about Sora, aren’t ya?” Goofy said.</p><p>“No…” Donald paused. “Yeah…”</p><p>“Me too. I can’t get the look he was sporting when we left outta my head, he looked so...crushed.”</p><p>“Stop it, I feel guilty enough as it is.” the mage huffed.</p><p>“Well did we really have to leave him there like that?” Goofy asked. “I know finding Mickey is important and all-”</p><p>“I’ve already lost someone I cared about once Goofy, I’m not losing another.” Donald flatly replied.</p><p>Goofy sighed. “I think you already have.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Oh c’mon, I know you were getting attached to Sora, heck I was too. The way you talked to him...it reminded me a lot of how I talked to Max.”</p><p>Donald huffed and looked away.</p><p>“And after all we’ve been through, we just left the poor kid behind like he didn’t even matter. I want to find Mickey as badly as you do Donald, but I don’t want to have to give up another friend to-”</p><p>A muffled boom echoing through the hall interrupted their conversation mid-way through.</p><p>“Did you hear that?” The duck said.</p><p>A second boom, this one louder than the previous one, sounded off.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah I did. Sounds like it’s coming from that way.” Goofy pointed down the hallway</p><p>“We’d better go check it out.”</p><p>As the duo ran down the halls, the booms only got louder and more frequent until it almost seemed like something was bashing it’s way through the walls of the castle. Which made both Donald and Goofy pull out their weapons, chances are that they were headed straight towards a fight.</p><p>Eventually they came into the main entrance hall of the castle itself where Riku was already waiting with the keyblade, the boy barely acknowledged them as they slid up beside him.</p><p>“Look sharp, we’ve got an intruder on the way.”</p><p>The massive double doors at the other end of the room rattled slightly; whatever had been tearing it’s way through the castle was nearly upon them.</p><p>Boom.</p><p>The doors rattled harder, Donald readied his thunder spell.</p><p>BOOM</p><p>The doors shook and swung forward as the wood splintered, Goofy got into a combat stance with his shield</p><p>BOOM!!</p><p>With a loud bang, the doors came flying off their hinges and crashed to the ground; revealing the same monster that Riku had struck down when they first arrived at hollow bastion, the creature clearly out of breath from it’s run in.</p><p>Donald was about to blast the poor sucker through a wall, only for a familiar spiky haired boy to step out from behind the beast with a wooden sword in hand and what Donald could only assume to be the remains of various heartless he fought on his way in, staining his clothes. The duck simply couldn’t believe it, against all odds, Sora had managed to fight his way into Hollow Bastion with nothing but a stick and a hairy bodyguard.</p><p>“You don’t know when to give up, do you Sora?” Riku spat.</p><p>The resolve on Sora’s face grew further. “I’ll never quit Riku, not until I save Kairi.”</p><p>“You won’t be able to, you lack the strength in your heart and the darkness will destroy you.”</p><p>“You’re wrong, Riku.” said Sora. “the darkness may destroy my body, but it can’t touch my heart. My heart will stay with my friends, It’ll never die!”</p><p>“Really? We’ll just see about that…” Riku growled.</p><p>To Donald’s complete and utter horror, the silver haired teen conjured up a blast of dark energy and flung it straight at his former friend. The ball speeding towards Sora at near breakneck speeds with the duck being unable to do anything other than watch it happen…</p><p>Goofy on the other hand, wasn’t so restrained; with an almost inhuman speed, the dog dashed right in front of Sora and held up his shield just in time to block the ball of energy before it made contact with it’s target.</p><p>“Sora ain’t gonna go anywhere!” Said Goofy.</p><p>“Really? You’d betray your friend for him?” said Riku</p><p>“I’d never betray a friend.” Goofy replied before turning to Sora. “not a single one of them and certainly not one who’s become one of my best buddies after all we’ve been through together.”</p><p>Donald clenched his fists, Goofy was right. He had been so desperate to find his friends again, to get back the people he cared about, that he had completely forgotten about the new ones he had made along the way. He didn’t care if getting attached to Sora meant he would only be setting himself up for more trouble down the road, Mickey would never forgive him if he turned his back on the kid now.</p><p>“See ya later Donald, when ya see Mickey again can ya tell him I’m sorry?!”</p><p>“No way Goofy, we’re going to tell him together!” the duck shouted before running up to his friends.</p><p>Sora and Donald looked at each other for a few moments, Donald awkwardly scratching the back of his neck with his head bowed as he tried to find the right words to say.</p><p>“Well...all for one and one for all right?” Donald nervously chuckled.</p><p>Sora gave Donald a warm smile and wrapped the duck up in a tight hug, one that Donald gladly returned with Goofy joining in shortly after.</p><p>“I guess you’re stuck with us Sora.” Goofy said with his arms squeezed around his friends.</p><p>Tears started to well up in Sora’s eyes. “Thanks a lot, Donald, Goofy.”</p><p>“As heartwarming as this is, you won’t get far without a proper weapon like the keyblade.” Riku sneered, pulling out the aforementioned sword for emphasis.</p><p>“I don’t need the keyblade anymore, I’ve got a better weapon: my heart!” Sora asserted.</p><p>The silver haired teen scoffed. “Your heart? What good will that weak little thing do for you?”</p><p>“My heart may be weak, but it’s not alone! It’s grown with each new experience and it’s found a home with the friend’s I’ve made, they’ve become a part of my heart just I’ve become a part of theirs. As long as they always stay loyal and never forget about me, then our hearts will be one! I don’t need a weapon, my friends are my power!”</p><p>As if on cue, the keyblade suddenly vanished from Riku’s hand and reappeared in Sora’s grip and judging by the two teens’ expressions, neither of them expected that to happen.</p><p>“What?! B-but...it was supposed to….HOW?!” Riku sputtered. “How’s that possible?!</p><p>Donald couldn’t help but laugh at his misfortune. “Well, I guess you weren’t as strong as you thought you were!”</p><p>“And by the looks of it, we’ve got you outmatched and out numbered.” Goofy added.</p><p>“This isn’t over!” Riku exclaimed through gritted teeth as he performed a massive jump to the top of the staircase at the back of the room. “You may have won back the keyblade, but it won’t matter in the end! I’ll still win!”</p><p>With that, Riku quickly darted off into the halls of Hollow Bastion and left the trio of heroes behind.</p><p>“C’mon guys! We have to-” Sora was cut off when Donald suddenly grabbed him by the arm to stop him in place.</p><p>“Hang on Sora, we need to talk for a second.”</p><p>“But Riku’s getting-”</p><p>“Please!” Donald pleaded. “This is important.”</p><p>The spiky haired teen gazed into the eyes of his duck friend and seemed to register the desperation and guilty that lied behind those blue eyes, he could tell that when Donald said it was important he MEANT IT. So he ceased his attempts to free himself from the mage’s grip and gave him his full, undivided attention.</p><p>Donald swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“I’m sorry for abandoning you! For just dropping you like you didn’t mean anything to us! It wasn’t right and I feel like a horrible-”</p><p>“Donald.” Sora placed a hand on the duck’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I forgive you.”</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“I forgive you Donald, you made a bad decision because you were desperate to find your friend again, to make sure they were safe; it was the wrong choice but for the right reasons and I can’t be mad at you for that, especially since we’re all back together again.”</p><p>Donald smiled and hugged Sora again. “When did you start growing up?”</p><p>“Probably when I left Destiny Island.” the brunette replied. “Now let’s go! We have to-</p><p>“LOOK OUT!” Goofy screamed, shoving Sora and Donald out of harm’s way with one arm while the shield strapped to the other swatted a heartless out of the air, sending the shadowy creature flying off to the side.</p><p>The keyblade wielder and the mage both quickly recovered from their surprise and noticed that a wave of heartless was now pouring into the room and quickly advancing on the group. But they stood their ground and readied their weapons, confident that they could take each and every single one of those creatures down; as long as they stuck together, they could take on anything.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*************************</p>
</div><p>Donald kicked open the door to the next room, sweat dripping off his feathers and staining his robes. They had been in a lot of tough spots and a lot of hard fights during their journey so far, but none of them could compare to the absolute hell that Hollow Bastion had been throwing their way.</p><p>The duck didn’t quite understand why, but the heartless of this world were bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than any of the ones they had encountered previously. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the castle basically served as the home base for the forces of darkness, regardless, it had been an absolute slogfest trying to work their way through the castle corridors with wave after wave of heartless throwing themselves at the group.</p><p>Donald thanked the heavens above for all of Merlin’s training and the spells he had stumbled upon during his journeys to the various worlds in this mysterious dimension giving him the strength he needed to blast his way through the creatures, along with Goofy’s strength and Sora’s skill backing him up to create an unstoppable team. It would have helped in the beast had tagged along but he had split off from the group to try and find somebody named Belle.</p><p>As for right now though, the group found themselves in a massive chapel like room with green torches and well carved pillars lining the walls and another hoo-man standing at the other end of the chamber. Her skin a sickly green and her eyes an almost feral yellow, the dark robes adorning her body and the black horns atop her head all came together to give her an almost demonic appearance.</p><p>“So you’ve finally arrived, took you long enough.” The woman hissed. “But I’m afraid you’re already too late, any moment now the final keyhole will be unsealed and this world will be plunged into darkness. It is inevitable.”</p><p>“Not if we have anything to say about it!” Sora shouted as he readied his keyblade. “We’ve come too far to fail now!”</p><p>The woman merely chuckled. “Such confidence, it’s a shame it’s so misguided. I am the mistress of all evil! You cannot defeat me!”</p><p>Donald could only roll his eyes at the sorceress’ arrogance, for some reason he couldn’t help but compare the woman to Magica De Spell; both were green skinned and feathered evil sorceresses that had an ego the size of the planet. Which is probably why Donald decided to cut her monologue short, he did not want to have to sit through another five minutes of gloating about how hopeless their situation was.</p><p>“Really, it’s pitiful how you three have come so far only to die by-” The sorceress was cut off by a fireball blasting her in the chest.</p><p>“Oh shut up! You’re powerful, you’re evil, WE GET IT! Can we just skip your dumb speech and get to the fight already?!” Donald shouted.</p><p>“Fine, have it your way.”</p><p>The sorceress’ body was soon bathed in a sickly green glow which quickly transformed into an emerald fire that consumed her form as she cackled.</p><p>Then she started to change.</p><p>Her body shifted behind the cover of the flames, her neck elongating, her nose and mouth stretching far beyond her face, a tail growing out of her lower back as two wings sprouted from above it. Whatever she was turning into, it couldn’t have been good.</p><p>When the flames finally died down and the trio was able to get a good look at the woman’s new form, they all collectively took a step back.</p><p>Gone was the pale green mistress in fantasy goth cosplay and in her place stood an absolutely terrifying dragon with glowing yellow eyes, onyx scales, and green fire leaking from it’s mouth whose head very nearly reached the ceiling when it was standing at its full height with a pair of leathery wings stretching almost the entire width of the room.</p><p>For the first time in a while, Goofy and Sora looked genuinely terrified out of their minds at the prospect of facing down this new threat and were rather hesitant to charge into the fray. But Donald? Donald was cool as a cucumber, the duck cracked his neck in anticipation, not even the least bit intimidated by the sorceress’ new form.</p><p>“A dragon huh? Well it’s not the first time I’ve fought a fire breathing lizard and it won’t be the last, bring it on.” The mage said.</p><p>And bring it she did, the dragon spewed out a plume of green fire that would have burnt the group to a crisp if it wasn’t for the fact that Goofy just barely managed to throw himself in the path of danger and raise his shield to block it for the second time today. Donald couldn’t help but wonder what that shield was made of for it to withstand such brutal punishment.</p><p>Unfortunately while the shield could protect them from the jet of flames, it didn’t do much when the dragon swiped at them with one of it’s claws and sent them straight through a stone wall into the next room over; a much larger chamber that had seemed to be partially overtaken by plant growth.</p><p>The trio quickly recovered and scrambled back on their feet as the black dragon tore it’s way into the room and resumed it’s attack, splitting up the party as they tried to flank her. But it was no use, her massive size and fire magic constantly forced them on the defensive, Goofy blocking with his shield while Sora and Donald dodged and weaved around her attacks the best they could. With his feathers getting lightly toasted and his stamina beginning to deplete, it quickly became apparent that they were fighting a losing battle</p><p>But Donald never let insurmountable odds stop him before though and he wasn’t about to start right now, when the going got tough the tough got crafty.</p><p>‘Come on Donald think, you’ve fought at least five dragons in the past, how did you beat them before? Vulnerable underbelly, burning the scroll that summoned it, putting out it’s...wait THAT’S IT!’ Donald was suddenly struck with inspiration.</p><p>“Guys quick! Get her mouth open!”</p><p>“What, but won’t she-”</p><p>“Just do it!” Donald shouted back.</p><p>Sora nodded and quickly searched the room for a way to get on the dragon’s back, finding one in the form of the roots of the tree that had partially taken over one side of the chamber. With Donald and goofy keeping the terrible lizard’s attention, the key blade weirder quickly circled around her and started climbing his way up the tree.</p><p>“Is this gonna be like that thing we pulled against that sea monster back in our navy days?” Goofy asked</p><p>“Something like that.” Donald replied with a grin, readying what might possibly be the most powerful frost spell he’s ever cast.</p><p>With one final leap, Sora flew off the branches of the massive tree and landed on the dragon’s back; the kid quickly running up her spine, jumping off her shoulders, and bringing his keyblade right down on top of her head with all of his might.</p><p>The dragon immediately howled in pain and opened its mouth wide open, at which point Donald let the frost spell he had been charging up go flying which nailed it’s target dead center, shooting straight into her maw and working it’s way down her throat.</p><p>The beast coughed for a few moments, closing its eyes and shaking its head, but it eventually recovered and shot the group a massive death glare while roaring in their faces.</p><p>“Oh no! It didn’t work Donald!” Sora said.</p><p>Donald just smirked. “Wait for it.”</p><p>Taking in a deep breath, the dragon prepared to fry that fowl for what he had just done. But when she curled her lips and attempted to let the jet of flame fly, the oversized lizard only managed to let out a weak cloud of smoke coupled with an utterly pitiful wheeze. A look of confusion grew onto her face as she tried to breath fire again and again, only for more hacks and wheezes to come out instead of so much as a spark.</p><p>“Ya put out her fire?” Goofy said</p><p>“Yep, my sister Della did something similar with a can of liquid nitrogen on an adventure in Finland.” Donald replied. “But it won’t last forever so we have to move quickly.”</p><p>The mage’s companions nodded and swifty lept back into the fray.</p><p>While the dragon’s sheer size made her more than an ample threat, the trio was quite used to dealing with massive opponents that towered over them and with the fire in her belly extinguished, she didn’t have a lot of tricks left up her sleeve. The fact that she now seemed to be panicking certainly didn’t do her any favors.</p><p>Her swipes had gone completely wild, flailing about as she desperately tried to crush the heroes hacking away at her scales; it was fairly obvious that the tide had turned and she had totally lost control of the situation.</p><p>Eventually the group managed to slowly but surely whittle down the old sorceress, Goofy and Sora landing numerous strikes up close and personal while Donald gave them covering fire from a distance in the form of lightning and frost spells. With a few final swipes from Sora’s keyblade the dragon let out a roar of pain before collapsing on the ground in defeat, her body being consumed by the same green flames that had created her new form until there was nothing left but a torched cloak where the giant lizard once stood.</p><p>Donald wiped the sweat off his brow. “Well that was fun, let’s keep moving.”</p><p>The duck only managed to take two more steps forwards before something suddenly whizzed past him, the wind coming off it blowing through his feathers, he turned around to try and get a look at it but the space behind him was barren and empty.</p><p>But he wasn’t the only one to notice it.</p><p>“What was that?” Said Sora.</p><p>“I dunno but it sure is-” Goofy was cut off when the unidentified object zipping around the room suddenly bashed him over the head and knocked him out cold in one hit, the dog hitting the ground like a sack of bricks shortly after.</p><p>“GOOFY!” Donald screamed, preparing to launch a counter attack only to receive the same treatment that his friend did in the form of a heavy blow to the back of his head that knocked him to the ground and left him seeing stars. The Duck’s vision quickly grew dark and blurry.</p><p>Just before he completely blacked out, however, Donald had enough sense to look up and try to discern what the heck had hit him. What he saw was the rather blurry outline of some dark blue armor and a head of white hair, but the mage didn’t have enough time to register this as he lost consciousness shortly after.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*************************</p>
</div><p>‘Wake up.’</p><p>‘Wake up Donald!’</p><p>“WAKE UP!” Goofy shouted as Donald finally rejoined the waking world.</p><p>Donald blinked a few times to fully regain his senses and once he did, he became acutely aware of the throbbing pain coming from the back of his skull that stabbed into him like a knife.</p><p>“What...what happened?”</p><p>“I don’t know, I think we got taken by surprise or somethin!” Goofy exclaimed. “But we can’t worry about that right now, Sora’s gone!”</p><p>Donald shot up from his spot on the floor. “WHAT?!”</p><p>“When I woke back up, the boy was gone! Completely disappeared!”</p><p>“Where did he-” Donald stopped when he saw what laid in front of him. “Did you check over there?”</p><p>Goofy followed Donald’s gaze and saw that there was a second hole in the wall opposite from the one that they had smashed through, the scorched and shattered bricks leaving clear evidence of a fight having occurred earlier.</p><p>“Oh, I didn’t see that…”</p><p>“Well come on then!” Donald said as he fetched his staff. “Sora might be in danger right now!”</p><p>Goofy nodded and pulled out his shield, following his avian friend out of the room as they followed the path of destruction through Hollow Bastion.</p><p>Donald wasn’t entirely sure how long they had been unconscious for but, judging by the extensive damage to the castle, they had clearly missed out on a huge fight: walls had been smashed down, tapestries torn and burned, statues and artifacts reduced to little more than rubble, Donald could only imagine what kind of destructive force Sora had to go up against which made him quicken his pace to find the boy.</p><p>Eventually they came to the grand hall of Hollow Bastion, which was surprisingly un-touched compared to the other sections of the castle they had run through. The princesses remained undisturbed in their stasis pods, the machinery lining the walls was only mildly damaged, and in front of a swirling portal that took up the majority of the entire room stood Sora looking fairly bruised up and exhausted but otherwise unharmed.</p><p>Donald could only let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Sora was just fine.</p><p>As he and Goofy got closer however, Donald noticed something was a bit...off, about Sora. He had this strange, unreliable expression upon his face that Donald couldn’t quite place; more concerning was the fact that Riku was missing and a hoo-man girl with auburn hair was laying next to Sora, seemingly unconscious.</p><p>And that wasn’t even covering the sinister looking keyblade Sora had clutched in his hand that he was staring down rather intensely.</p><p>“Sora?” Goofy asked, approaching the boy. “Ya alright there bud?”</p><p>Sora jumped slightly, seemingly just now realizing that they had entered the room at all, before looking at Goofy and Donald with the same unreadable expression.</p><p>“Sora? What’s going on? Who’s that girl?” Donald asked.</p><p>Sora turned his gaze towards the redhead and then turned back towards the duck with a heartbreaking smile.</p><p>“Sorry guys.” Sora said as he slowly lifted up the black and red keyblade in his hand. “Look after Kairi for me, will ya?”</p><p>“What are you-” Donald’s words died in his throat when the spiky haired teen brought the keyblade down and stabbed himself through the chest.</p><p>“SORA!” screamed Donald and Goofy as they very nearly had heart attacks right then and there.</p><p>The boy’s chest started to glow as the keyblade rescinded itself from his chest, floating away a few meters before falling back to the ground with a loud clatter. The keyblade then proceeded to disintegrate before revealing six golden orbs that quickly flew through the air and embedded themselves in the chests of the princesses that were trapped in stasis.</p><p>While this was happening, a seventh golden orb burst out of Sora’s chest and flew right into the girl that Donald presumed to be Kairi, the girl waking up with a start. But the duck couldn’t bring himself to care about these new developments and what they meant, he was too busy literally throwing himself towards Sora who was now rapidly vanishing into a shower of light.</p><p>Donald stuck his arms out in front of him to catch the boy. “SORA! SORA!”</p><p>Right as the duck reached him, Sora crumbled away into a few sparks of light that swiftly darted off into the air. The mage slumped to his knees in despair, gazing at his hands that were now covered with the sparkly remnants of the boy he had grown so attached to over the past few days.</p><p>“No, no, no.” Donald sobbed. “Not again, not like this.”</p><p>A series of footsteps brought him out of his depressive state slightly, the duck looking up to meet Kairi’s eyes that we also welling up with tears as Goofy placed a hand onto Donald’s shoulder in a failed attempt to comfort him.</p><p>“He’s...he’s gone.” Goofy stuttered out. “We just got him back and we lost him again…”</p><p>“No! He can’t be, I won’t let him go!” Kairi shouted in frustration.</p><p>The sparkles that had been floating through the air seemed to take notice of the group’s despair and started rapidly swirling together, melding together into a ball of shadow that crashed to the ground in front of the group like a rocket.</p><p>When the dust finally cleared, the unwelcome sight of a heartless showed itself. The creature was undoubtedly created when Sora unlocked his own heart with the keyblade, leaving him vulnerable to the darkness.</p><p>The sight of Sora’s heartless only made the weight in Donald’s heart grow heavier, the sight of his former friend turned into one of the monsters they had sworn to fight made it feel like the universe itself was mocking his ability to protect the people he cared about, always losing them to situations he simply couldn’t control.</p><p>He wanted to be angry, he wanted to lash out and tear apart the heartless in front of him, but Donald simply couldn’t bring himself to do so; that heartless was still a piece of Sora, the last piece of him that may have been left, and he cared far too much about the boy to risk hurting even an echo of his former self. So all he could do was sit there and silently sob.</p><p>Kairi, on the other hand, seemed to have a different idea.</p><p>“Sora? Is that you?” The girl asked.</p><p>To Donald and Goofy’s surprise, the heartless actually nodded in reply as if he could understand what Kairi was saying.</p><p>Unfortunately none of them would have the time to think about what that meant as a crowd of heartless suddenly burst from the shadows and surrounded them.</p><p>“Uh oh.” Goofy said.</p><p>Donald grit his teeth and clenched his staff tightly, the anger in his being finally pushing through the overwhelming sadness he felt earlier; it seems as though some volunteers showed up to help him vent his frustrations over losing Sora.</p><p>The duck let out a battle cry and charged forwards, blowing apart several of the heartless with a lightning bolt and swatting away several more with his staff; it probably wasn’t good to use his magical staff to bash the heartless but he was too angry to care at the moment. Evidently Goofy felt much the same as he rapidly crushed several heartless in a row with his shield, both men putting all of their grief into the blows they flung out.</p><p>But in doing so they completely failed to notice what was occurring behind them until it was a little too late.</p><p>“Kairi!” Goofy shouted, finally noticing what was behind them.</p><p>Donald spun on his heel and nearly screamed at the sight of a large crowd of heartless dogpiling both Kairi and Sora’s heartless; but before either of the two could charge in and save their friends, something happened...something that Donald would never be able to explain despite pouring over countless tomes of magic and gaining an intimate understanding of how hearts worked down the road. A bright flash of light suddenly burst forth from beneath the pile of heartless, blasting them all away and showering the room in a bright yellow glow. Once it finally cleared away, Kairi was no longer holding onto Sora’s heartless; rather she was holding onto the real, flesh and blood Sora who had somehow had his heart restored and his body along with it.</p><p>“Kairi...thank you.” Said Sora.</p><p>Goofy and Donald quickly rushed over and tackled Sora into a hug, their negative emotions completely overwhelmed by the joy and relief now overflowing in their hearts.</p><p>“You’re back! You’re back!” the duo chanted, jumping for joy with Sora in their arms.</p><p>“Nice to see you again guys.”</p><p>“Don’t ever do something like that again Sora. Ya hear me?” Said Goofy</p><p>“Yeah, you really scared us back there.” Donald added.</p><p>Finally freeing himself from their hug, Sora scratched the back of his head. “Sorry, but it was the only way I could save Kairi. Oh that reminds me! Kairi, this is Donald and Goofy, they’ve been helping me on this adventure; Donald and Goofy, this is Kairi my-”</p><p>“Girlfriend?” Donald teased with a cheeky smile.</p><p>Sora and Kairi both immediately blushed, the latter of which waved his hands. “No! No we’re just-”</p><p>“As much as I hate to interrupt the reunion, you may not want to start celebrating just yet.” Said a new voice.</p><p>All the eyes in the room suddenly turned towards a new individual that had entered the fray, a tall tanned man with a heartless symbol tattooed onto his chest, a head with yellow eyes and long white hair that flowed down to his lower back, and a black leather coat covering the majority of his body except for his arms that held a pair of white gloves. One could practically feel the sheer power resonating off this being, something the rest of the group quickly picked up on.</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>The man chuckled. “Ansem, seeker of darkness, and I really should be thanking you boy. By freeing the seventh princess’s heart, you opened the pathway to kingdom hearts from which true darkness shall burst forth and overwhelm these pitiful worlds, returning them to their true state. I hoped that Riku boy would have accomplished such a feat, but I suppose as long as the pathway is opened it doesn’t matter who served as my puppet.”</p><p>“Wait, what?!” Sora exclaimed. “What did you do with Riku?”</p><p>“He’s far our of your reach boy, his heart now belongs to the darkness itself. But don’t worry, you’ll join him soon enough.”</p><p>“Not if we have anything to say about it!” Donald exclaimed</p><p>Goofy leaned down to his friend. “Do ya really think we can take him on? He looks kinda tough.”</p><p>“I dunno, but we’ve done pretty well so far.”</p><p>Ansem let out another laugh and raised his arm. “Oh please, spare me your blind heroics.”</p><p>With a wave of his hand, the seeker of darkness let loose a massive shockwave that blew all four of them back and sent them flying down to the lower level of the grand hall.</p><p>“Now if you will all be so kind as to excuse me, I have to open the door to darkness.” Ansem said as he stepped through the rainbow portal on the other side of the room and disappeared.</p><p>Donald wheezed at the throbbing pain in his side. ‘Yep, that is definitely a cracked rib. Of all the times not to know any healing spells.’</p><p>The duck looked over and noticed that a dainty hand had stretched down to his eye level in an offer to help him back onto his feet, an offer he gladly took as he grasped hold of the hand. Once he was standing again, Donald realized he was now face to face with one of the formerly comatose princesses of the heart; Cinderella, he believed she was called.</p><p>“Thank you for rescuing us. But unfortunately our problems are not over yet.” Cinderella said</p><p>“What do you mean?” asked Sora as princess Jasmine helped him to his feet.</p><p>“While you may have prevented Ansem from seizing the power of our hearts, that doesn’t change the fact that the path way to the heart of darkness has been opened. An opportunity Ansem will no doubt seize to unleash the full power of the darkness.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, we’ll deal with him.” Goofy added.</p><p>“Yes I know that’s what you believe.” the black haired princess said. “But Ansem is far stronger than any opponent you’ve faced in the past and even with your new abilities you might not be able to overcome him.”</p><p>“But don’t worry.” added Cinderella. “We offer you this power to aid you in the coming battle.”</p><p>The well-dressed woman gently waved her hands across the trio, a shower of sparkles falling upon them as she did so. When the sparkles made contact with Donald’s body, he felt a newfound energy flow through him, rejuvenating him and strengthening him, it was almost as good as the magic water that powered him up during his final fight with Felldrake...almost. From what he could tell, Sora and Goofy were feeling much of the same energy.</p><p>“Oh yeah.” Donald said with a flex of his fingers, sheer power coursing through them. “This is going to help a lot.”</p><p>“Excellent.” Cinderella said. “Now go, stop Ansem, and save all of our worlds; we’ll look after Kairi and ensure she’s protected.”</p><p>Kairi’s head whipped towards the blonde. “What? No, I’m coming with them! I won’t lose Sora again!”</p><p>“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” said another princess with black hair, Donald couldn’t quite recall her name; ‘something white’ he thinks. “We can’t risk losing one of the pure light hearts to the darkness, doing so could mean the end of all things. For your own protection, you’ll have to remain here.”</p><p>“But I-”</p><p>Sora placed an arm on his friend’s shoulder. “Kairi, please. Listen to them, I don’t want to put you in danger and I can’t lose you either.”</p><p>“What if you don’t come back?”</p><p>“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll make sure he comes back safe and sound.” Donald said.</p><p>“We promise.” Goofy added.</p><p>Kairi bit her lip, the girl clearly trying to find another reason to stop her friend from running towards what may very well be certain death, but she eventually relented with a sigh.</p><p>“Alright, fine. Go, save the world; but when you get back, you had better tell me all about what happened after we left Destiny Island.”</p><p>Sora nodded and captured Kairi in one last goodbye hug before hoofing it up the stairs with his companions and stood in front of the portal. A sense of finality hanging in the air.</p><p>“So this is it huh? The end of all this?” Sora said.</p><p>“Sure seems that way.” Goofy added. “What do you think is waiting for us over there?”</p><p>Donald shrugged. “Who knows, but we’ll face it together. All for one and One for all, remember?”</p><p>Sora nodded and took in a deep breath. “Well, let’s not keep our destiny waiting.”</p><p>Pushing forward, the trio of heroes stepped through the portal and their vision was almost completely overtaken by light as wind rushed past their ears. Once it started to clear up, Donald became aware of the sensation of sand beneath his feet and the crashing of waves against the shore and it soon became apparent that they were now standing upon the destroyed remnants of a deserted island.</p><p>“Destiny Island…” Sora said.</p><p>“Your home?” Donald asked.</p><p>“It was..” the hoo-man bowed his head. “And it was beautiful.”</p><p>“Some fools just never know when to give up.”</p><p>Following the sound of the voice, the group spotted Ansem standing on the very edge of the island with his back turned to them.</p><p>“All worlds begin in darkness, and all so end. The heart is no different; darkness sprouts within it, it grows, consumes it, such is its nature.” Ansem monologued. “In the end, every heart returns to the darkness from whence it came! Darkness is the heart’s true essence.”</p><p>“That’s not true!” Sora shot back. “The heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in! But I’ve learned that deep down, there’s a light that never goes out!”</p><p>“So you have come all this way and still understand nothing. Fine, I suppose I will simply have to demonstrate the power of the darkness first hand and tear your eyes open just as I did with that boy Riku.”</p><p>A deep purple shadow engulfed Ansem, the seeker of darkness swiftly growing in size and strength as the ground quaked beneath them. Destiny Island slowly tore itself apart as Ansem revealed his final form, but despite the obvious odds stacked against them Donald and the others stood strong in the face of this threat. It may have been a tough fight, but they couldn’t afford to back down now with what is currently at stake. They’d either defeat Ansem or…</p><p>‘No, that won’t happen. We’re going to defeat Ansem and save the world, I know it.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>With the seeker of darkness standing before them at full strength, the trio of heroes drew their weapons and….</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*************************</p>
</div><p>“And what? C’mon, I’m on the edge of my seat here!” Dewey exclaimed.</p><p>Huey awkwardly flipped back and forth between the pages he was on with a bug eyed expression.</p><p>“This...this doesn’t make any sense!” Huey sputtered. “On this page it has them starting their battle with Ansem, but on the very next it has Ansem being defeated! There’s just a huge gap here!”</p><p>Webby pointed to the frayed bits of paper stuck to the spine of the book. “It looks like the pages were torn out.”</p><p>“Torn out? Why would Donald tear out pages in his own journal?”</p><p>“Well it’s not like we can ask anyone. Look let’s just keep reading and see where things go from there, it’s not like one missing battle is going to have anything important.” Louie said.</p><p>Huey sighed. “Yeah, yeah you’re right. Now where were we?”</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*************************</p>
</div><p>The colossal being that Ansem had hooked himself up to exploded in a burst of light, every appendage literally collapsing in on itself as Ansem howled in pain. It had been a hard fought battle for sure, one that pushed all three of them to their limits and forced them to use every trick they knew to win, but it paid off. Donald could barely believe it himself, they had faced down what may as well have been a god like being and emerged victorious; they were blood, beaten, and utterly exhausted, but they were still victorious.</p><p>Ansem floated through the void, now reduced to his original form. His body was shaking and lined with injuries, his face had an expression of disbelief and pure rage.</p><p>“It. Is. Futile.” Ansem said through pained breaths. “The keyblade alone cannot seal the door to darkness.”</p><p>The man then turned around and reached out towards a small chunk of land that had been floating through the void, housing an immaculate white door.</p><p>“Kingdom Hearts! Fill me with the power of darkness….”</p><p>Slowly, the door began to creak open and clouds of shadow soon began to leak out from the small opening in the door.</p><p>“This is the truth boy, this is the supreme darkness!”</p><p>“You’re wrong!” Sora exclaimed. “I know now that, without a doubt, Kingdom Hearts….it’s light!”</p><p>A ray of golden yellow light suddenly spilled forth from the door, piercing through the darkness and embracing Ansem; much to the man’s displeasure.</p><p>“Light? But...why?” Ansem said before his form was completely destroyed by the light, leaving absolutely no trace of the man behind apart from the bad memories he had created.</p><p>But there wasn’t much time for our heroes to celebrate; while opening the door to kingdom hearts may have saved them, it was too risky to leave the doorway open and allow whatever monsters that lied behind it to run free. So they quickly rushed over to the door and threw their weight at it, trying to push it closed with all of their might.</p><p>Unfortunately, those doors absolutely refused to budge even with the combined strength of Sora, Donald, and Goofy pushing against them.</p><p>Goofy leaned over as he was pushing, peeking through the space between the doors, and his expression quickly became one of dread.</p><p>“Hey, stop staring and keep push- oh no…” Donald said, turning his head around to see just what his friend was staring at.</p><p>There were heartless, thousands- no, millions of them. All bunched together in a massive sea of darkness with yellow bug eyes shining through it like demented stars, if they got out it would mean the end of them along with all the other worlds and it was only a matter of time until those shadow monsters realized the door was open; closing the door to kingdom hearts suddenly became a far more urgent matter.</p><p>“Hurry!” Donald dug in his heels and pushed even harder against the door.</p><p>“I-I can’t it won’t-” Sora was cut off by a gloved hand grabbing the door from the other side.</p><p>A familiar silver haired teen peeked out from behind the door, wearing a much friendlier expression than before. “Don’t give up! Come on, Sora! Together, we can do it!”</p><p>With Riku lending his aid, the doors to kingdom hearts finally started to move and slowly close once more. But the teen wasn’t the only familiar face to show up here, for when Donald looked through the doorway again, he spotted a very unique set of ears standing against a veritable army of heartless that had tried to advance on the door, the figure holding a golden keyblade in their hand; the duck could only make out his silhouette but there was no mistaking someone with such distinct features.</p><p>“MICKEY?!”</p><p>The mouse looked back and shot his friends a smile. “Come on guys, let’s close this door for good.”</p><p>For the briefest moment, Donald faltered, how could he not? He had been searching for that mouse for so long, but now that he had finally found his old friend they were going to be separated once more.</p><p>“But Mickey-” Donald began to protest.</p><p>“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine! Just get that door closed, I can’t hold off these heartless forever!” Mickey shouted as he sliced through another crowd.</p><p>Donald solemnly nodded and pushed harder, the doors finally sliding back into place. But right before kingdom hearts closed for good, Mickey looked back at his old navy buddies and shot them a smile.</p><p>“Donald, Goofy, this won’t be the last time we see each other...I promise.”</p><p>With that, the doors to kingdom hearts slammed shut and cut the trio off from their respective friends. Sora, seizing the opportunity, pulled out his keyblade and pointed it towards the door, a burst of light exploding from the magic sword and striking the door; causing it to seal itself shut and disappear in a flash of glowing colors.</p><p>Just as Donald was about to give into his fatigue and slump down onto his behind, he felt the ground beneath him start to rumble before it completely gave way beneath them and sent them plunging into darkness; the flight abilities they had learned from Peter Pan failing them as they plummeted into the void.</p><p>Then all at once, the darkness gave way to a bright light and the falling sensation that the duck had been experiencing disappearing with it.</p><p>It took the mage a few moments to realize where they were, the adrenaline from the past few hours still coursing through his veins. But once he calmed himself down, he realized that he was now laying in the middle of a lush green field with Goofy and Sora at his side who were looking just as confused as he was.</p><p>“Did...Did we win?” Goofy asked.</p><p>Sora looked around at their surroundings before letting himself fall back into the grass. “Well we’re still alive and I don’t see any heartless, so I think we did.”</p><p>Goofy sighed in relief and laid back down next to his hoo-man friend, content to simply enjoy a much deserved rest with Donald doing the same.</p><p>It took only about ten minutes for Donald to break the peaceful silence. “So...what now?”</p><p>“We find Riku and Mickey.” Sora replied.</p><p>“But where do we even start looking for them?”</p><p>“We’ll worry about that later.” Sora said. “Right now, I need a nap.”</p><p>“A nap does sound pretty good right about now Donald, I’m dog-tired.” Goofy said.</p><p>Donald had to agree, the duck merely snuggled into the soft grass and gazed up at the bright blue sky above. Thousands of thoughts were running through his mind, going over the last few minutes and what they meant: Mickey was alive but trapped in the realm of darkness and they might be stranded in an unknown world without their gummi ship. But Donald simply ignored those thoughts as he allowed his eyelids to droop further in relaxation, they’d have plenty of time to figure out their next move, after all the fighting they’ve been doing for the past few days they needed a bit of a break and such a tranquil setting was the perfect place to do it.</p><p>Just before Donald drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but get the feeling that his adventures in this strange dimension were far from over.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*************************</p>
</div><p>“This….this goes deeper than we thought.” Huey said, closing the book.</p><p>“Ooh, I’d better get started on a Donald Duck board.” Webby said, rushing off to a random corner of her room.</p><p>“Should we stop her?”</p><p>Louie shook his head. “At this rate, we’re probably gonna need it to keep track of everything. That whole world Donald visited is pretty complicated as it is. I’d be more worried about how Lena’s going to react to finding out uncle Donald knows magic.”</p><p>“Knew magic, we don’t know if he managed to keep a hold of his powers over the years.”</p><p>“Oh sure, because if uncle Donald had some sort of secret skill or mystical ability he learned in the past, he would have definitely told us by now.” Louie sarcastically replied.</p><p>Huey looked back down at his uncle’s journal. “Touché Louie, Touché”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and kingdom hearts 1 comes to a close, if I didn't tug on your heartstrings during this chapter then clearly I'm not doing my job right.</p><p>This actually wound up being WAY longer than I intended on account of Hollow Bastion being longer than I thought, but I might as well do a big chapter to end of the first of three mini arcs. Kingdom hearts 2 is up next and the first chapter will mark the appearance of the only other ducktales character that's going to appear, some of you have guessed HER identity but I'm going to refrain from saying anything so as to not spoil it for those that haven't figured it out yet.</p><p>anyways, until next time my Donald stans!<br/>(P.S. until the kingdom hearts arc is over, I am going to have every single chapter title include the word 'heart' in some fashion.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Kingdom Hearts 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>“WHAT?!” Lena shouted.</p><p>“Shhh! Not so loud, do you want everyone in the mansion to know about our secret meetings?!” Louie scolded the punk duck.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I’m just having a bit of trouble processing that your dorky uncle is a powerful wizard on top of everything else!” Lena continued.</p><p>“That would explain a few things…” Violet said.</p><p>Louie looked over to the hummingbird. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Well, lately I’ve been working on a device that can track and measure magical energies. It’s still in its early phases, but I’ve certainly made some decent progress.” Violet explained. “I brought it over to the mansion for a few test runs and every time I pointed it towards your uncle, the device nearly overloaded. I thought it might have been some kind of glitch but now…”</p><p>“So he might still know magic? Awesome! That means I’m part robot, part superhero, part secret agent, and part wizard!” Dewey cheered.</p><p>“Having magical energy and knowing how to use it are two very different things Dewey.””</p><p>“It’s still worth putting on my new Donald board!” Webby said as she pinned a piece of paper with the words ‘magical prowess’ next to a photograph of Donald Duck on a hastily constructed cork board that was already overflowing with documents.</p><p>“She really got that up fast didn’t she?” Louie remarked.</p><p>Dewey hummed in agreement.</p><p>“As much as I’d like to debate whether or not Uncle Donald’s abilities have decayed with time, don’t you think we should get back to why we even have these meetings?” Huey waved around Donald’s journal.</p><p>“Right sorry.”</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Donald’s eyes fluttered open as he let out a tired yawn, stretching out against the mattress he was laying against-</p><p>‘Wait mattress?’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>Sitting up, the duck quickly realized that he was back in the master bedroom of Sheldgoose manor, the one he had claimed shortly after receiving ownership of the mansion much to the displeasure of the triplets who wanted the room for themselves; which only further added to his confusion.</p><p>‘How did I even get here?’ Donald racked his memories for an explanation, the last thing he could recall was that he fell asleep in that field with Sora and Goofy after defeating Ansem and sealing off Kingdom Hearts. So why was he back home? Did...did he just imagine the last year and a half?</p><p>The creaking of the bedroom door followed up by an excited gasp broke him out of his thoughts, the former sailor looking over to see that April was standing in the semi open doorway.</p><p>“GUYS! HE’S AWAKE!” the sweater wearing girl shouted.</p><p>Within moments, the rest of the household piled into the room and crowded around the bed whilst fretting over the poor duck.</p><p>“Donal’ oh thank heavens above! You’re okay!” Panchito exclaimed.</p><p>José pressed a hand to Donald’s forehead “do you need anything my friend? Some warm soup? A glass of water? A handsome brazillain man to cuddle up to?”</p><p>“Wait, so are we not allowed to call dibs on his stuff anymore?” May interjected.</p><p>Donald spread out his arms, simultaneously shoving them all back and silencing them. “Hold it! What’s going on?! How did I get back here in the bedroom?”</p><p>“We found you and your friends passed out in a secret room, don’t worry we took the liberty of placing them in other rooms while they rest.” José stated. “It is fortunate that we were here to help, otherwise I hate to imagine what may have happened.”</p><p>That gave Donald pause. “Wait, why are you here?”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“You guys said you were going to be out of town all weekend, visiting your families. Why are you back?” Donald asked.</p><p>As the parrot struggled to come up with an explanation, Donald noticed a few inconsistencies surrounding him: the dresser and the desk in his room were on the opposite sides from where they should have been, the numbers on the grandfather clock were all garbled and unreadable, and he was still wearing his wizard’s uniform.</p><p>Then he looked at the triplets and realized something that he should have noticed far sooner: they were wearing the wrong colors. April was wearing a yellow sweater, May was in a purple tank top, and June was wearing a pink dress; Donald knew for a fact that none of the three EVER wore each other’s colors, June in particular despised the color pink for a variety of reasons.</p><p>Suddenly, it all became oh so clear what was really happening.</p><p>“This isn’t real, is it?” Donald said.</p><p>Panchito sighed and nodded his head. “Afraid not.”</p><p>“But worry not my friend, you should be waking back up in about…” José pulled out a pocket watch. “Three...two...one…”</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Donald’s eyes snapped awake for the second time as he tumbled to the floor in a heap, trying to shake off the haze that had covered his mind.</p><p>After pinching himself to make sure that he truly was awake, the mage pulled himself back to his feet and took a good look at his surroundings: he was standing in a dark grey corridor with low lighting, twisting pipes and multicolored screens lining one wall and several pearly white pods lining another, one of which was the open one he had just tumbled out of him.</p><p>That’s about when some of the memories started flowing back, or at least some of them. After resting up in that field, the duo decided to follow a nearby pathway in the hopes that it would lead to some sort of landmark so they could figure out where they wound up after beating Ansem. Eventually they came to a massive gold and teal castle, Castle Oblivion it was called if the engraving on the entry was anything to go by; for some reason Sora felt an invariable pull towards the castle and basically dragged them inside to find….</p><p>Donald blinked, he didn’t remember. Try as he might he simply couldn’t recall any of the events that occurred after they stepped through those immaculate doors, it was as if there was some sort of mental barrier that was keeping him from accessing those memories. Which only made him even more concerned; waking up in a strange location without any memories of the previous day, he really didn’t like the connotations of that.</p><p>Before he could get out another thought, a hissing sound emanating from behind him caught his attention and he looked over just in time to be treated to the site of Goofy falling out of the pod that was next to his, an equally tired and befuddled look upon the dog’s face.</p><p>‘Well at least Goofy’s still here, that’s good.’ Donald thought to himself as he helped his canine friend to his feet.</p><p>“Ugh, what happened?” Goofy said. “Oh hi Donald.”</p><p>“Hey Goofy, do you know how we wound up here?”</p><p>Goofy put a hand on his chin. “Well, let’s see. The last thing I remember was us finding this big old castle that Sora insisted on going into and next thing I know I woke up here.”</p><p>“Huh, weird. Wait, where’s Sora?”</p><p>Goofy and Donald’s eyes widened when they realized that the third member of their party was currently absent, a quick check of the empty pods confirmed that handily.</p><p>“Okay, let’s not panic just yet. Maybe if we take a look around we might find some clues as to where he is, or at least where we are.” Donald said.</p><p>Seeing the door at the end of the hall as good a place to start as any, Donald and Goofy quickly walked straight through it and found themselves in a large white room with an utterly massive stasis pod in the center of it, one far more intricate and ordain than the mass produced ones they had been previously contained in.</p><p>As they got closer, the pod suddenly opened with a loud hiss and unfolded like a blooming lotus flower. There was a cloud of mist shrouding the figure inside, but once it cleared away Donald nearly jumped in joy when he spotted the familiar head of spiky brown hair.</p><p>Sora drowsily stumbled out of the pod, trying to rub some of the sleep out of his eyes, perking up almost immediately when he noticed the duck and dog standing right in front of him.</p><p>“Donald! Goofy!” Sora cheered as he rushed down and captured them both into a hug.</p><p>As he did so Donald couldn’t help but notice he seemed much...taller than before. But that was probably just his imagination, he was still kinda sleepy after all.</p><p>Once they were done cheering, a very familiar cricket suddenly appeared on Sora’s shoulder and did a tired stretch of his own.</p><p>“That was some nap.” Jiminy yawned.</p><p>“We were asleep?” Sora asked.</p><p>“We musta been, or I don’t think we’d be so drowsy.”</p><p>“How long do ya think we were out for anyways?” Goofy asked.</p><p>“Well, let’s see.” Sora began. “We defeated Ansem, restored peace to the world, found Kairi, started searching for Mickey and Riku, wound up at castle Oblivion, and….”</p><p>“And?” Asked Donald.</p><p>“I...don’t remember.”</p><p>“Hey, what about Jiminy’s journal? Maybe that has some answers?” Said Goofy.</p><p>The cricket shook his head. “No good, there’s only one sentence: thank Naminé. Any of you know anybody by that name?”</p><p>The trio shook their heads.</p><p>“Some journal that is.” Donald sighed.</p><p>“Well, what do ya say we find out where we are?”</p><p>“Sounds good to me.” Said Sora.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>******************************</p>
</div><p>To say that Donald was a bit unnerved was the understatement of the year.</p><p>After regrouping with Sora, Donald and company quickly made their way through the strange building they had found themselves in, revealing it to be an old manor that looked to be almost completely abandoned, dust and cobwebs covering every surface, it was like the place hadn’t been visited in over a year. A quick search of the place didn’t yield any clues whatsoever, apart from a few holes in the walls and scorch marks that left evidence of a very recent fight occuring within the manor</p><p>The surprise, however, didn’t come until they made their way out of the mansion and made their way through a thick forest that they found themselves in a town that none of them seemed to recognize at all. Wherever they wound up, it was far, FAR away from castle Oblivion. Which only raised more questions regarding their missing memories as well as how long they had actually been asleep for.</p><p>But those were questions to be answered later, they had more pressing matters to attend to. The first and foremost being resuming their quest to find Riku and Mickey again, selective amnesia or not Donald hadn’t forgotten about his best friend.</p><p>“So, where should we start?” said Donald.</p><p>“Not sure, it might be worth a shot to ask around.” Goofy replied. “What do you think Sora? Sora?”</p><p>The duo looked behind them to see that their third member had broken away from the group and was now heading into a concealed alleyway.</p><p>Donald quickly caught up to his hoo-man friend. “Sora? Where are you going?”</p><p>“Not sure, I just...I feel like I’ve been to this town before.”</p><p>“What’s it called?”</p><p>Sora shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I imagined it.”</p><p>Donald hummed and merely followed the brunette further into the alleyway with Goofy bringing up the rear. After pushing past a hanging blanket, the trio came upon a dinky little hangout spot set up in an open area behind some of the town’s buildings which was currently occupied by three teenagers: a skinny blonde boy in a denim vest and camo pants, a short chubby boy with spiky hair wrapped up in a headband and a shirt that read ‘dogstreet’, and a brown haired girl with an orange tank top and tan cargo pants.</p><p>“What do you want?” the blonde one gruffly asked.</p><p>Sora ran a hand through his hair “nothing, just wondering what was back here.”</p><p>“Well now you know, this is our spot.”</p><p>The chubby one approached them with a slight look of confusion. “Hang on, you’re new around here right? I’m Pence.”</p><p>“Hayner, nice to meet ya.” the blonde one said as he walked up next to Pence.</p><p>“And I’m Olette. What about you guys?” the girl asked.</p><p>“Well, we’re Sora, Donald, and Goofy.” Goofy said, motioning to each of his friends in turn.</p><p>“Hey wait a second.” Hayner said. “Didn’t some guy come by earlier looking for a group of guys with those names?”</p><p>“The one with the big, round ears and the black coat?” Asked Pence.</p><p>“Yeah him, come to think of it he seemed to be in a huge hurry too.”</p><p>It took the heroes all of about three seconds to figure out who they were talking about.</p><p>“Mickey!” they said in unison.</p><p>“Where did you see him?” asked Donald.</p><p>“At the train station, just a few blocks from here.” Pence replied.</p><p>“The station! Got it, come on guys let’s go!” Sora said before darting off.</p><p>Goofy tipped his hat to the teens. “Thanks for the help, it was a pleasure meeting ya’ll!”</p><p>“Same here! See ya!” Olette waved goodbye as they ran through the streets of town.</p><p>Donald could barely contain his excitement as they sprinted down the road, not only was Mickey still okay but he had managed to escape the realm of darkness and was out looking for them, if they were lucky they might be able to find him at the train station and have a happy reunion.</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Donald was mentally kicking himself right now for getting his hopes up, he should have known that they wouldn’t be so lucky as to find Mickey at the train station; he was Donald Duck, the one that got stuck with all the bad luck.</p><p>It did take them a little while to actually get to the station, apparently when Pence said ‘just a few blocks’ he actually meant ‘several blocks’, and they did get lost a few times. But they made it all the same, unfortunately they didn’t exactly get a warm welcome when they arrived.</p><p>As they were searching the area for Mickey or at least a hint of where he might have gone, a group of monsters suddenly leaped out from seemingly nowhere and surrounded the group. They were these spindly white creatures with thin, tentacle-like arms and legs, wide maws lines with razor sharp teeth, and a strange white symbol that looked like a combination between a cross and a heart on their faces. Donald may have only seen a few drawings of them in the past from his teachings with Merlin, never having encountered one in the flesh...or whatever they were made of, but he was still able to tell right away that these were nobodies; the leftovers that were created after a heartless was born.</p><p>Regardless, it was fairly obvious that the nobodies were looking for a fight and had no intention of leaving without one.</p><p>“Circle up!” Goofy shouted, jumping straight into his old instincts.</p><p>Sora and Donald obeyed instantly, putting their backs to one another with their weapons drawn, getting into a fighting stance.</p><p>The nobodies immediately rushed them, zipping foward like demented plastic bags in the wind with gnashing teeth. They were quickly dispatched by the trio, luckily none of them forgot all the skills and training they had gained over the course of their adventures and were still every bit as powerful as before. Sadly, that wasn’t enough to overcome the new threat they faced.</p><p>Nobodies weren’t heartless, they were an entirely different kind of monstrosity. They moved and attacked differently, forcing the group to come up with new strategies to combat them on the spot, not to mention the fact that they Wouldn’t. Stop. Coming.</p><p>For every nobody one of them took down, two more simply sprang up in its place and those seemingly endless swarms started to wear them out. Apparently being in a comatose state really didn’t do any favors for their stamina.</p><p>“I can’t...Keep this up...much longer...” Goofy panted.</p><p>Donald shot off another fireball, arms aching. “Me...neither.”</p><p>A nobody suddenly slammed straight into Donald’s chest, sending him flying back into Goofy who promptly fell on top of Sora and left all three of them laying in a pile of exhaustion as the nobodies descended upon their now helpless prey.</p><p>Their stories may have very well ended then and there if not for a friendly face showing up in the nick of time to save their sorry butts.</p><p>Just as a nobody was about to bite off poor Donald’s head, a blur of black and gold suddenly swooped in from above and cleaved the creature in two along with several more of it’s friends in a matter of seconds. The remaining nobodies almost instinctively flinched back at the sight of this new opponent before letting out a collective hiss and fleeing the scene.</p><p>Pushing Sora off of him, Donald got back to his feet to get a better look at their savior and the duck’s eyes were immediately drawn to the comically large ears concealed beneath the hood of the figure’s black coat.</p><p>‘Wait, big ears, black coat...’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>The mage’s focus darted towards the golden keyblade clutched in the figure’s left hand which only confirmed his suspicions.</p><p>“M-Mickey?” Donald stuttered out.</p><p>The mouse pressed a finger to his lips but did not turn to face his friend. “Shhh. You gotta get on the train and leave town, the train knows the way.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Here.” Mickey said, pulling out a small bag and tossing it at Donald’s feet. “Take this and hurry, we don’t have a lot of time.”</p><p>The duck picked up the sack and opened it, finding three train tickets and what looked like a blue marble. The momentary distraction quickly wore off as Donald realized exactly who was standing in front of him.</p><p>“Wait Mickey, what’s going on? Where have you-”</p><p>“I can’t tell you right now, just go see the master and he’ll lay it all out for you.” Mickey said.</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“See ya later Donald.” the keyblade wielder said before taking a running jump off a nearby ledge.</p><p>Donald let out a squawk and quickly rushed over to the edge, only to find that his rodent friend had completely vanished into thin air.</p><p>Goofy walked up next to his duck friend “Was that-”</p><p>“It was, I’d recognize him anywhere.” Donald affirmed.</p><p>“Wait, wasn’t he trapped in the realm of darkness?” Asked Sora</p><p>“Yup.”</p><p>“So if he’s here, then that means Riku might have gotten out too!”</p><p>“He must have.” Said Donald “Mickey would never leave a friend behind.”</p><p>Goofy smiled. “Heck, he probably knows where Riku is. If we can find Mick then…”</p><p>“....we can find Riku!” Sora finished</p><p>Donald pulled the train tickets out of the bag. “Well he gave us a lead, we might as well follow it and see where it goes.”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan!” Sora exclaimed “let’s go!”</p><p>As they made their way into the station, suddenly a voice behind them shouted ‘hey! Wait up!”</p><p>Looking over his shoulder, Donald saw the trio of teenagers from earlier running up to them.</p><p>“Guys? What are you doing here?” Sora asked.</p><p>“We came to see you off.” Pence replied. “It just seemed like something we oughta do.”</p><p>“Oh, really? Thanks!”</p><p>“Yeah but we have no clue why…” Said Hayner. “It feels like we’re saying goodbye to someone we’ve been waiting a long time to see.”</p><p>The sound of a train bell cut through the air.</p><p>“You guys should hurry, the train’s leaving soon.” Said Olette.</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>A quick jaunt up a set of stairs brought them to the train platforms with their tickets matching up with the one closest to them. Right before they got on the train however…</p><p>“Hey Sora?” asked the blonde teen.</p><p>Sora turned around to look at Hayner.</p><p>“Are you sure we haven’t met before?</p><p>“I...I think so. Why?”</p><p>Hayner shook his head. “I dunno.”</p><p>“Come on Sora, we gotta get going. You wanted to find Riku, remember?” Donald said whilst tugging on the boy’s wrist.</p><p>“Right, sorry.” Sora said, a few stray tears streaming down his cheeks.</p><p>“Sora? Ya alright pal?”</p><p>The spiky haired brunette placed a hand to his cheek, suddenly realizing that he was indeed crying and wiped away the moisture. “Yeah, I don’t know where that came from.”</p><p>“Pull it together man.” Hayden said.</p><p>“Right, see ya!”</p><p>On that note, Sora stepped into the train with his companions and waved goodbye to his new friends as the locomotive pulled away from the station.</p><p>Donald looked down at the bag Mickey gave him and pulled out the blue marble, turning it over in his hands a few times to get a better look at it. He used his magic to scan it for any significant properties, mystical or otherwise, but found that it was just a plain old blue marble.</p><p>‘Why would Mickey give us this?’ Donald thought to himself. ‘He must have had a reason to.’</p><p>“Hey Sora?” Donald asked.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>The duck padded over to the boy. “Do you recognize this at all? Mickey gave it to us and I’m not sure why.”</p><p>Sora took the marble from Donald and examined it. “I don’t know, it feels like I should but I’ve never seen it before in my life…”</p><p>“You’ve been going through a lot of deja vu today, haven’t you?” Donald deadpanned.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s weird. Maybe it has something to do with all of our missing memories.”</p><p>“That’s as good a theory as any I suppose.” Donald said.</p><p>Sora nodded and turned his gaze back towards the outside of the train, which was now cruising through the void in between worlds.</p><p>Seeing as he was pretty much done with this conversation, Donald walked back over towards Goofy and took a seat.</p><p>“So, Mickey seems to be doing pretty well for himself.” Goofy remarked.</p><p>Donald hummed in agreement. “He certainly knows how to use that keyblade.”</p><p>“What do ya think he’s been up to since we all got here?”</p><p>“No idea. There’s no telling where that portal spat him out after we opened it.” Donald shrugged. “But I do know that when we see him again, we’ll have a lot to get caught up on.”</p><p>“Yup. We will….hey, can I tell him the part about the genie and the magic carpet?” Said Goofy.</p><p>“As long I get to tell him the part about the mermaids.” Donald replied.</p><p>“Fine by me.”</p><p>The rest of the trip was spent in silence. Donald merely enjoyed the sight of the aurora borealis surrounding the train with Goofy doing much of the same.</p><p>Despite the comforting sight, Donald couldn’t help but feel that things were soon going to take a turn for the worse.</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“We’re here!” Goofy exclaimed as the train came hissing to a stop.</p><p>“And where is here, exactly?” Said Donald</p><p>Hopping off the train, the trio found a large tower made of golden yellow stone that seemed to twist and stretch at least a mile into the sky with a teal spire that oddly resembled a wizard hat topping it off.</p><p>“Well if Mickey wanted us to go here, I’m sure he had a reason. Let’s take a look around.” Goofy said.</p><p>As the trio got closer to the tower, they noticed a figure in a set of dark robes impatiently pacing just outside of the tower, muttering under their breath. Seeing as they were the only other person here, Donald decided to approach them for some answers.</p><p>“Seriously, how long does it take for the heartless to overwhelm a simple wizard? I’ve been waiting out here for at least an hour now.” the figure muttered.</p><p>“Excuse me.” said Donald. “What’s going on.”</p><p>The figure chuckled. “Oh, I sent some of my minions inside to see if the master of this tower is really as powerful as the legends claim him to be. Apparently he’s a powerful sorcerer feared by many; not that it matters, my heartless will make short work of him regardless of his magical prowess and once he’s a heartless he shall obey my every whim.”</p><p>“Wait, a heartless?!” Donald sputtered.</p><p>“Exactly, those wonderful monsters that are created when one gives themselves to the glorious darkness with their heart. With all of them by my side, I’ll be able to conquer this entire dimension!” The figure cackled. “That’s why I’ve been traveling to different worlds and building up an army of- wait, why am I even telling you my plan? I don’t have time for idle chatter, begone from my-”</p><p>The figure turned around and froze when her yellow eyes met Donald’s baby blues, both of the ducks recognizing each other instantaneously.</p><p>“YOU!” They both shouted in unison.</p><p>It had been years since he had seen that monster of a woman, but she was just as vile and ugly as she had been the last time he saw her; it was hard to forget one of his uncle’s worst enemies after all.</p><p>Standing before him, was none other than Magica De Spell.</p><p>“So you are still alive, a pity.” Magica said. “That’s unfortunate, after you disappeared I had hoped you had perished somewhere out there in the world. Watching Scrooge crumble to pieces when he finally received the news that his dear nephew turned up dead would have been a dream come true.”</p><p>“Oh shut it! How are you even here?”</p><p>“Right, you haven’t kept up with Scrooge’s latest exploits. Well that miserable old man and I got into a bit of a spat over another piece of treasure as usual and long story short, it opened up a portal that transported me to this dimension. Although I can’t be too upset, the darkness that exists here combines wonderfully with my own dark magic which has given me the potential to become far more powerful than before! It’s been wonderful...until you showed up.” Magica growled that last part. “Why is it that no matter where I go or what I do, I can never be free from Scrooge Mcduck’s accursed family?!”</p><p>Donald crossed his arms. “What can I say? Ducks never back down.”</p><p>“No matter, I’ll just deal with you now.”</p><p>Magica conjured up a ball of dark energy, causing Sora and Goofy to take a step back and form a defensive position; Donald, on the other hand, simply summoned up his staff and stood strong with an almost bored expression on his face.</p><p>“Take this!” Magica shouted, flinging a ball of dark magic right at Donald’s face.</p><p>Not only did the mage take it, but he caught it with his staff and flung it back right at Magica who narrowly blocked it with her own staff.</p><p>“Wait, what? since when do you-” The sorceress didn’t get out so much as another syllable as Donald promptly blasted her with a thunder spell that sent her flying straight through the front doors of the tower and impacting against the pillar sitting in the middle of the entry room, leaving a Magica shaped imprint on the stone as a memento.</p><p>“So Scrooge’s brat knows magic now, perfect.” Magical sarcastically wheezed. “That still means nothing, you may have caught me by surprise momentarily but I’m still the superior-”</p><p>Magica was cut off for the second time when Donald blasted her again, this time with a fireball that knocked her through a stone wall and into the next room over where she skidded to a stop.</p><p>Goofy scratched his head “Uh, are you gonna need any-”</p><p>“No, I got this. Just go clear out any heartless that might still be left in the tower with Sora.” Donald replied.</p><p>His companions nodded and rushed up the stairs with eager smiles, leaving Donald and Magica to face each other one on one.</p><p>“You shouldn’t have sent them away Donald.” Magica got back on her feet. “You’ll never be able to-”</p><p>A frost spell knocked the green duck back down. “WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT?! YOU CAN’T JUST KEEP INTERRUPTING ME!!!”</p><p>“Oh but I can, see the thing is Magica: not only have I learned how to use magic, but I’ve gotten really good at using it, and I want to show you just how strong I’ve become.” Donald said with a cheeky smile.</p><p>“Even if you can match me step for step, I’ve got far more experience with magic and the power of darkness behind me, boy. You can’t win.”</p><p>Donald readied his staff. “We’ll see. This is for the time you tried to transfer your mind into Scrooge’s body…”</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“GAH!” Magica screamed as she was blasted through the ceiling, onto the top floor of the tower, Donald flying up after her.</p><p>Unfortunately for the poor sorceress, her mastery of the dark arts and decades of experience didn’t mean very much in the face of a mage who completely outclassed her in terms of sheer power output. It wasn’t that she was weak, far from it, it’s just that Donald stood several leagues above her to the point where he had spent almost the entire fight simply throwing her around like a ragdoll without even breaking a sweat. She wasn’t even able to get a shot in.</p><p>Donald would have found it funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic: the dark and powerful Magica De Spell, brought to her knees by Donald Fauntleroy Duck.</p><p>“I can’t believe I used to be scared of you.” Donald said.</p><p>“How?! How are you this powerful?!” Magica gasped. “You’ve only been gone for two years and I’ve been practicing magic for far longer than that!”</p><p>“You’d be surprised how much can happen in two years Magica.” Donald shrugged.</p><p>The green duck shakily got back to her feet. “Alright, so you can match me blow for blow. But can you deal with my army of heartless? ATTACK MY LOYAL MINIONS!”</p><p>She had expected an entire horde of heartless to burst through the door and swarm Donald, tearing him limb from limb, but instead she was met with only silence.</p><p>“I said ATTACK MY LOYAL MINIONS!”</p><p>Still nothing, not a single heartless appeared to come to Magica’s aid.</p><p>Now Magica looked confused. “Where did all my-”</p><p>“Ahem.”</p><p>The duck froze as if the devil himself had suddenly appeared in front of her. She slowly turned around and came face to face with a tall hoo-man in wizard robes, complete with hat, a long grey beard, and bushy eyebrows scrunched up into a scowl. At his sides were Sora and Goofy who were giving a set of friendly waves to Donald who quickly realized that this was the master of the tower Magica had been after, the master of the same tower Donald had blown numerous holes in during his fight with the aforementioned sorceress.</p><p>The mage quickly shrunk into himself, knowing that he had very likely done just as much if not more to upset the man as Magica had.</p><p>Magica looked back and forth between the wizard and Donald, scowling after a few moments.</p><p>“This isn’t over! I’ll be back to destroy all of you!” The green feathered duck yelled, quickly opening a dark portal that she fled through.</p><p>Seeing as the threat to his sanctum had fled, the man turned his attention to Donald who quickly straightened up under his intense gaze.</p><p>“I am so sorry, I didn’t mean-”</p><p>The man held up his hand to silence the duck who quickly obliged and snapped his beak shut. He then snapped his fingers and in a flash of light, all the damage done to the tower was completely repaired.</p><p>“Think nothing of it Donald Duck. We have more important matters to discuss at the moment.” The man said.</p><p>“Okay, and you are?”</p><p>“I am master Yen Sid, the most powerful sorcerer of all the worlds.” The man replied.</p><p>“Yen Sid? Why does that sound familiar?” Donald said, then it hit him. “Wait a second, now I remember! Merlin says you owe him a new hat!”</p><p>Yen Sid stared down Donald for a few moments before his lips curled up into a smile followed by a deep laugh. “Nice to see that my friend has passed his sense of humor onto his best student. Merlin speaks quite highly of you Donald Duck and I can certainly see why but we’re getting off topic, we need to talk about the new threats that have arisen in your absence.”</p><p>“Absence?” Donald looked at Sora and Goofy. “What is he talking about?”</p><p>The dog shrugged. “I dunno, he said he wouldn’t tell us anything until all three of us were present.”</p><p>“And now you are.” Said Yen Sid. “follow me please.”</p><p>The old man led the trio into his study, a simple office space lined with books and ceramics which was very similar to the one Merlin had. Donald guessed it must have been an old wizard thing, that or Yen Sid and Merlin had the same taste in decor.</p><p>“Have you seen your companion Mickey Mouse yet?” Said Yen Sid.</p><p>Goofy perked up. “You know Mickey?”</p><p>“How could I forget my favorite pupil?”</p><p>“P-pupil?!” Donald stuttered. “When did- how did-”</p><p>“That is a story for another time, we must address the matter at hand: the worlds require the aid of you three once more.”</p><p>“What? But I thought we brought peace to the worlds after defeating Ansem, how could things have already fallen apart?” Asked Sora.</p><p>“Do you know how long you three have been absent Sora?” Said Yen Sid.</p><p>A chill went up Donald’s spine, he really didn’t like where this was going.</p><p>“No, but it couldn’t have been more than a few days right?”</p><p>Yen Sid. “Sora, you’ve all been asleep for a year.”</p><p>Donald’s legs nearly gave out from under him right then and there, he simply couldn’t believe it. They had been comatose for an entire year? No wonder everything seemed so different than before!</p><p>“A..A YEAR?!” Goofy sputtered.</p><p>“Yes and while peace was maintained initially after Ansem’s fall, new threats rose in his place that threaten the worlds once more.”</p><p>Yen Sid pulled out a tome and laid it out before the trio, flipping the pages open.</p><p>“I presume you have become well acquainted with the nobodies?” said the wizard.</p><p>Donald shook off his earlier shock and nodded. “Yeah, Merlin taught me all about them and we fought dozens of them on the way here.”</p><p>“Then you are aware of their nature as simply empty shells that have lost their hearts, destined to return to darkness. However…”</p><p>Yen Sid lifted a hand and several projections of tall figures in black, hooded coats suddenly appeared behind them.</p><p>“Some nobodies are different, a group of powerful nobodies have banded together and formed a collective known as ‘organization thirteen’ which commands the lesser nobodies.” Yen Sid explained. “While heartless act on instinct, nobodies function on a higher manner, they can think, they can plan, and they seem to be working towards a goal.”</p><p>“What are they trying to do?” asked Goofy.</p><p>“Unfortunately, we do not know. My pupil, however, sensed the danger and journeyed fourth to combat it as well as seeking you three out to aid him. As of now he’s traveling from world to world, battling the heartless and trying to uncover organization thirteen’s plot.”</p><p>“I guess we’d better find Mickey then.” said Sora. “he’ll know what to do.”</p><p>“But where could he be?” Donald said.</p><p>“Well, we won’t know until we look.” Goofy added.</p><p>“Before you go, you’ll need more suitable traveling clothes. Those rags look a bit small for you.” Yen Sid motioned to a doorway on his right. “Through there you’ll find three good fairies. If you ask, they’ll create more appropriate garments.”</p><p>“He does have a point Sora.” Goofy said. “Ya sure are growing fast.”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” the boy replied.</p><p>Sora quickly disappeared into the next room over, leaving Donald and Goofy with Yen Sid who walked over to a nearby window and motioned for the two to follow</p><p>“I also have something else to aid you on your quest, does this look familiar?”</p><p>A large, toy-like spaceship slowly floated into view just outside of the tower.</p><p>“Hey it’s the gummi ship!” Donald exclaimed. “I thought we left that back at Hollow Bastion.”</p><p>“You did, but luckily I was able to retrieve it for you before anyone else could steal it for themselves.”</p><p>Goofy smiled. “Thanks! I don’t know what I woulda done if I lost my ship!”</p><p>Yen Sid nodded and his expression turned more serious. “But I must warn you, the trials that lay ahead will be far more difficult than those you have previously faced. The worlds have changed in your absence and several new ones have sprung up, you must be prepared for anything going forwards.”</p><p>“Yen Sid, I’ve seen a whole lot over the course of my life.” Donald flatly replied. “There’s nothing these new worlds can throw at me that’ll take me off guard.”</p><p>The door that Sora had disappeared through suddenly creaked open and the spiky haired boy stepped through, wearing a brand new set of clothes: gone was the silly yellow shoes and cherry red pants, in its place was a tasteful black outfit with golden fringes; it made him look much more mature than before, which was fitting considering he was a year older now.</p><p>Sora awkwardly ran a hand through his hair “How do I look?”</p><p>“Like a hero.” Goofy said with a smile.</p><p>Sora returned the dog’s smile with one of his own.</p><p>“Well then, shall we get going? We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” Donald remarked.</p><p>“Sounds good Donald.”</p><p>As the trio made their way out of the tower, Donald couldn’t help but wonder how much they had missed while they were out, a lot could happen in a year after all…</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>“Uh, Lena? You okay?” Said Dewey.</p><p>The punk duck’s face had been frozen in a look of surprise, one that quickly wore off at Dewey’s probing; the girl’s brain seemingly rebooting itself as her beak snapped shut.</p><p>“Sorry, I just didn’t expect...her, of all people to show up in Donald’s stories.” Lena replied. “I think I just gained a whole new level of respect for your uncle.”</p><p>“It was pretty cool to hear that he basically wiped the floor with Magica.” Louie remarked</p><p>“And it gives us a baseline for measuring his magical prowess.” added violet. “Although given how much he outclassed De Spell, we’ll still need more information to get any exact measurements.”</p><p>“It’s still a good start!” Webby chimed in as she fiddled with her Donald Duck corkboard.</p><p>
  
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I got ya with that intro didn't I?</p><p>And yes, Magica De Spell is the mystery guest from ducktales that's going to appear in the kingdom hearts arc; she's basically going to take Pete's place for Kingdom Hearts 2 before branching out into her own thing for Kingdom Hearts 3. Don't worry, this'll be the only time she gets curb stomped this badly; she'll become a bigger threat as the arc goes on.</p><p>Anywho, next chapter will mark Mickey's return!</p><p>(P.S. credit to Esthyradler for making the lovely art at the bottom. You can find more of their stuff here: https://esthyradler.tumblr.com/. )</p>
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<a name="section0027"><h2>27. A heartfelt reunion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*furiously writes to try and get as many chapters as I can out before the finale.*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>“So they haven’t said anything to you?” Donald asked his uncle.</p><p>Scrooged shrugged, eyes never leaving the map in front of him. “Not a word lad, I canna understand why yer gettin so worked up over this. The wee ones seem fine to me.”</p><p>“That’s because you can never tell when something’s upset them.” Donald muttered under his breath</p><p>“What was that?”</p><p>“Nothing.” Donald quickly replied. “Look just...keep an eye on them for me? I just know something’s wrong but they won’t tell me what it is.”</p><p>“Fine fine, now will ya get out of my office? I need to triangulate the position of Monkey Island, Theepwood’s staff isn’t going to find itself!”</p><p>“Alright I’m going.” Donald remarked, just barely missing the sight of Violet and Lena darting past the door with an old book in their hands.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>The worlds sure have changed in the past year or so, they really had missed a lot while they were asleep and everything was so new and strange to them. Now they were facing threats and meeting friends both old and new.</p><p>At first they merely trod over familiar ground, meeting up again with hercules to fight a hydra, participating in a few more of ariel’s musicals whilst striking down ursula for the second time in a row, visiting Jack Skellington who introduced him to his world’s version of Santa Claus (who was a hoo-man instead of a polar bear, oddly enough), and even running into Sora’s furry friend, the beast who was more than happy to help them tear through a few nobodies and heartless.</p><p>Of course for every old world they passed through, there were just as many new ones that had sprung up and were just waiting to be explored. A world that was stuck in ancient china where they met Mulan, a girl attempting to pass herself off as a boy so that she could help the imperial army to fight the huns; Della probably would have gotten along wonderfully with her. A world of pirates with hoo-mans that somehow looked even weirder than the ones he had met in his travels so far; both Donald and Goofy were a little uncomfortable in that one, especially since Jack Sparrow reminded them so much of a certain pirate that nearly killed them back in their navy days, at least Sora seemed to have some fun playing pirates. A world set on the african savanna where they got transformed into talking animals, Sora being a lion, Goofy a turtle, and Donald became a bird; being able to fly around was so liberating for him, he almost wanted to stick around for a bit longer, but he had a job to do. With these new worlds came new challenges and foes, sure they had to deal with the heartless and the nobodies that had been invading the worlds but they also had to contend with whatever villains had attempted to take advantage of the invasion to serve their own ends; it certainly didn’t help that Magica had not only resurrected the sorceress they had faced in Hollow Bastion, Maleficent, but those two vile women had struck up an odd friendship and were attempting to throw gas onto the fires of chaos that were consuming the realms, which only made the trio’s job that much harder. And don’t even get him started on how much of a pain in his tail feathers organization thirteen was making themselves out to be.</p><p>But it wasn’t all bad of course, they gathered up plenty of new allies in their quest to hold back the darkness and seeing the old ones again was just lovely. While there was more at stake now than in their previous adventures, it didn’t stop them from having fun where they could and simply enjoying some of the picturesque locales that they passed through; say what you will about the beast, but he sure lived in a beautiful home that could give mcduck manor a run for its money in terms of lavish decor. Getting out of those pods and back to doing what they were best at was quite possibly the best thing that could have happened to them</p><p>Then Donald started noticing the lucky emblems.</p><p>They were pretty simplistic in their design, just one large circle with two smaller ones stacked on top of it, to anyone else that symbol would haven’t meant anything to them and would have just been a random shape; but not to Donald and Goofy, they knew perfectly well what that symbol meant and who had been leaving them behind. It was the mouse family crest, the symbol of Mickey’s lineage that had been passed down from generation to generation, the history of which the mouse had spent an entire weekend explaining to the two of them.</p><p>He had spotted the first one carved into a tree in the land of dragons, then there were two more painted onto stone slabs in the olympic colosseum, and soon enough Donald was seeing them practically everywhere. At first they seemed to be scattered around randomly, placed upon surfaces throughout the world haphazardly; but it quickly became apparent that there was a method to the madness, a pattern of sorts to guide anyone who spotted and could recognize the symbols.</p><p>Mickey had left his crest behind for them, Donald knew it, so that they would have a veritable trail of breadcrumbs that would lead them exactly where they needed to go as they stumbled through the worlds. More than that, seeing those symbols gave them the greatest gift one could have in this situation: hope. Every time he saw one of those symbols, it gave him more strength to keep going, it let him know that his friend was okay, and it gave him a reason to keep pushing forward even when things were at their darkest.</p><p>They were close to being reunited, closer than they had been over the course of this whole adventure, it was only a matter of time before they could find Mickey again and then they could start working on a plan to get back home again.</p><p>As for right now, the group was paying a visit to Hollow Bastion which had (thankfully) been completely turned around since the last time they were there thanks to the efforts of The Hollow Bastion restoration committee; a group of teens that originally lived in Hollow Bastion before it had been consumed by darkness and were now seeking to take it back from the heartless and restore it to the way it used to be. There was Leon, Aeirth, Cid, Yuffie, and Donald’s old teacher Merlin who was sporting a brand new wizard hat. They had stopped by after meeting with Yen Sid and got some direction on where to head off next, but had returned after the committee called them in to investigate a secret room they had found in the castle.</p><p>At least that’s what they thought.</p><p>“What do ya mean you didn’t call?” Said Goofy.</p><p>“I mean we didn’t call. I can’t make it any simpler for ya old timer.” Cid replied.</p><p>“Well somebody did.” Said Sora. “The gummi ship picked up a transmission coming from here, saying you guys needed us to swing by.”</p><p>The committee members looked at each other and shrugged.</p><p>“I don’t know what to tell you, we didn’t send out any calls.”</p><p>Donald scratched his head. “Weird, maybe we should take a look around just to be safe?”</p><p>“Well you’re already here, might as well.” Yuffie suggested. “Maybe you could figure out who made the call.”</p><p>“Actually I made the call.” A new, familiar voice rang out.</p><p>Donald’s feathers nearly stood on end as he and Goofy slowly turned towards the source of the voice, still not entirely sure if their minds were playing tricks on them or not.</p><p>Standing at the front doors of Hollow Bastion, casually leaning against the doorframe, was a figure about Donald’s height wearing a black coat with a hood pulled over the mystery individual’s head that hid his face. Although it was a moot point given that the figure had two, massive, unmistakable ears jutting out of the hood.</p><p>Donald didn’t say anything, he couldn’t say anything, both him and Goofy were simply frozen in complete shock as if they had seen a ghost while their minds attempted to comprehend who was standing in front of them.</p><p>The figure moved to pull the hood down and reveal his face; but right as he did so, Donald and Goofy finally found their nerve and sprinted towards him as fast as they possibly could, barely able to contain their excitement.</p><p>“Hey fellas-” Was all Mickey was able to get out before he was tackled into a tight hug by Donald, nearly throwing him off his feet in the process.</p><p>“MICKEY!” Donald cheered, squeezing his mouse friend as tightly as he could.</p><p>Goofy let out a joyous laugh and wrapped his arms around both men, lifting them up and twirling them around. “GOOD TA SEE YA AGAIN MICK!”</p><p>“WE’RE SO GLAD YOU’RE OKAY!”</p><p>“Alright, alright. I’m happy to see you guys too.” Mickey chuckled as he gently pushed them off. “It has been a while after all.”</p><p>“You’re darn right it’s been awhile! We’ve got so much to catch up on!” Donald asserted.</p><p>“I know, I know. But we’ve got more important stuff to do at the moment, I did call you guys to Hollow Bastion for a reason.”</p><p>“Was it to tell us where you’ve been all this time? Cause I really wanna know.” Said Goofy.</p><p>“I gotta admit, I’m pretty curious myself.” Sora added. “After everything they’ve told me about you, I’m just dying to know about your past.”</p><p>Mickey sighed and hung his head. “You guys really aren’t gonna let this go, are ya?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“No way.”</p><p>“Fine.” Said Mickey. “We can talk on the walk over, come on, let’s go.”</p><p>The mouse motioned for the trio to follow him inside Hollow Bastion, the restoration committee sensed that this was a more private matter and left the group alone.</p><p>“So you really wanna know what happened huh? Well...it was hard fellas, at least at first…”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>
  <b>Two and a half years ago</b>
</p><p>
  <em>Mickey coughed and spat up some of the leaves and mud that had gotten into his mouth when he crashed to the ground.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened back there. All he knew was that he opened a chest in that secret room, saw a big golden key sword, and then everything went black; now he was standing in the middle of some unrecognizable forest with the key sword still clutched in his-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘Wait a second.’ Mickey looked down and saw that the key from earlier was still clutched in his hand. The blade thumming with unknown power in his grasp that he could feel coming off in waves.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he felt an inexplicable attachment to this giant key. It was almost as though this was made personally for him and Mickey wasn’t too keen on letting it go, especially since it was the only thing he had on him apart from the clothes on his back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Looking around for a bit, Mickey quickly figured out that he was completely alone at the moment, no Donald or Goofy in sight. But he didn’t panic for he knew it wouldn’t do him any good in this situation.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s fine, I’m sure they didn’t land too far away. I’ll have a look around and see if I can find them.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unfortunately for the mouse, after several hours of searching he quickly came to the conclusion that neither of his friends had landed in the nearby vicinity. Mickey still kept his cool however, the situation was bleak but far from hopeless, all he had to do was pick a direction and just walk towards it; he’d have to hit some sort of civilization eventually, right?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So the mouse started walking, keeping the key sword leveled on his shoulder as leaves crunched beneath his feet. He spent the better part of the day simply hoofing it through those woods, only stopping when the sun went down and the encroaching darkness forced him to set up camp for the night.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Luckily the combination of his junior woodchuck membership and grandpappy who loved to rough it out in the mountains with him, meant that Mickey had all the skills he needed to set up a proper fire and shelter with what little he had on hand at the time to form a decent base camp</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As he drifted off to sleep for his first night in the woods, Mickey started to feel the slightest pang of dread come from the back of his mind. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>That was his mere existence for a while, hiking through the forests during the day and resting during the night. Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks as the mouse tried in vain to find his way out of the seemingly endless woods, then the fear started to hit him at full force.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It wasn’t because he was lost in the woods, it wasn’t because he was forced into a survival situation, and it wasn’t because he didn’t know what sort of creatures lay waiting behind the shroud of foliage. No, the reason Mickey was getting so scared in the current situation was because he was all alone out here.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If there’s one thing about Mickey Mouse that all that are familiar with him know, it’s that the mouse is a VERY outgoing person; an extrovert and a social butterfly who absolutely lives for interactions with others. That personality trait, however, was actually tied into a deeply held phobia of his that he had ever since his parents accidentally left him at the playground when he was three for a whole day: Autophobia, the fear of isolation. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mickey HATED being alone, the sheer thought of it terrified him down to his very core; having nowhere to go and nobody to turn to was his worst fear and it was quickly being realized. He tried to stick it out at first, but night after night of being alone with nothing aside from the comforting flame of a campfire started to take its toll on the poor actor’s psyche. It certainly didn’t help that he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some...malevolent force watching him from the foliage; either he was going crazy or there were these beady yellow eyes that peered out at him from the shadows at night. The wide open space of the woods felt like walls that were closing in on him, the silence became deafening, more than once he had to suffer a sleepless night from his anxiety constantly gnawing away at his mind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He might have very well snapped and started talking to a hunk of wood with Donald’s face carved on it, doing a perfect impression of the duck to go with it, if not for the timely arrival of a friendly face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At first Mickey thought he had finally snapped when that weird flesh faced creature with a large beard appeared in front of him in a flash of light, an hallucination brought on by the last embers of his sanity flaking away before he turned into a wildman that stalked the woods for the rest of his life with that weird golden key at his side. But when the creature placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, the warm and weighty sensation bringing him back from the brink, he quickly realized the figure was real.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Mickey Mouse.” The creature said.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Huh?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Come with me, we have much to discuss.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>By that point Mickey was too delirious to question the situation and promptly followed him through a portal that led to a rather expansive tower.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The creature introduce himself as master Yen Sid, a human wizard-</em>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>“Wait, that’s how it’s pronounced?” Said Donald. “I’ve been saying hoo-man all this time.”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s human Donald, not hoo-man. Anyways, back to my story.” Mickey replied.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>
  <em>A human wizard and a powerful one at that who watched over all the realms, ensuring that everything was right with the worlds; after noticing a series of energy spikes across the world, the old man spent a decent period of time investigating the occurrence until he finally found Mickey. Once Yen Sid realized that the mouse was in possession of a keyblade, he quickly tracked him down and brought him back to his sanctuary to explain things.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Interdimensional travel certainly was a new experience for Mickey, heck all of this was, knowing that he was now stuck in an entirely different universe filled with all sorts of fantastical worlds and creatures, both friendly and not, along with a whole lot of magical forces he could barely even comprehend. He couldn’t be too upset however, Mickey was just happy that he finally had someone to talk to after being alone for so long, someone who was more than willing to teach him how to use that key he had been carrying around for so long.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Apparently it was a magical artifact known as a keyblade, powerful weapons that had been forged to fight back the darkness which could only be wielded by those with strong hearts. The keyblade Mickey had, kingdom key D, was one of the stronger keyblades and had chosen him as it’s new master. Unfortunately the only experience Mickey had in sword fighting was choreographed fights on movie sets so Yen Sid was forced to teach him from scratch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Surprisingly enough, Mickey proved to be naturally adept at utilizing the keyblade; taking to it like some kind of aquatic bird to water. Within a few short weeks he went from sloppily swinging it around like a baseball bat to striking as though he had been born with the artifact in his hand.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Swordfighting wasn’t the only thing Yen Sid had Mickey brush up on either, there was a decent amount of physical and mental training the mouse went through to prepare him for the day he’d have to assume his responsibilities as a keyblade wielder. Mickey didn’t even know half the stunts the wizard taught him were physically possible for someone of his stature, and yet here he was pulling off massive jumps and flips like an old pro.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The wizard also taught him all about the history of the worlds, the threat the darkness posed and the need to seal up keyholes wherever they were found.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was surreal in a way. The mouse had played plenty of fictional fantasy heroes on the big screen before, of varying levels of quality depending on the script, but to actually become one in real life was a whole nother ball game.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Then came the day that Donald and Goofy resurfaced.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mickey had nearly run out the door to start searching for them when Yen Sid delivered him the news; even after he had been rescued by the wise old man, Mickey still worried about his friends and where they may have ended up, to hear that they were not only okay but had been looking for him made his day. After a few final lessons from Yen Sid, Mickey grabbed a few traveling supplies and headed off to bring about their reunion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unfortunately, fate had other plans in store for the young mouse. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He had arrived in Traverse Town through a portal conjured up by Yen Sid, only to discover that he had just missed his friends by roughly a day or so; he planned on chasing them from world to world until he caught up with them, only for some of the locals to convince him that it would simply be easier to stay in town and wait for his friends to return. They’d have to come back to Traverse Town eventually, all travelers did after all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If Mickey had known what would have come from that decision, he might have taken his chances with the other worlds out there.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It had been simple bad luck really, maybe Donald’s misfortune had rubbed off on him a little, stumbling across that portal that led to the realm of darkness in Traverse Town. Much like last time, Mickey felt and irresistible draw to the dark portal and fell right in; leaving him stranded in the realm of darkness surrounded by heartless, master Yen Sid’s training was the only reason Mickey managed to hold back the creatures that inhabited the realm.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The situation was bleak at first, but it didn’t stay that way for long. About a day after stumbling into the realm of darkness, Mickey met a brand new friend who had been cast into the realm by a powerful force: a silver haired teen by the name of Riku. The duo quickly figured out they were on the same side and decided to stick together for a better chance of survival.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At first they had tried to escape the dark realm through the door to darkness, the passageway revealing itself when Ansem forced it open, only to realize that if it was left open then all the heartless in the realm of darkness would follow them out; to make matters worse, a keyblade wielder would need to be on each side of the door in order to close it properly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It nearly killed Mickey to have to do what he did, especially after seeing Donald and Goofy on the other side after so long, but he had no choice; he couldn’t let the darkness seep out into the realm. So he helped Riku, Sora, Donald, and Goofy close the door to darkness and seal it up permanently; thus trapping the mouse and the teen with all of those heartless.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Luckily for them, a few days after the event, Mickey discovered a unique property of the kingdom key D: it could open up portals to and from the realm of darkness. The mouse utilized that ability to allow safe passage back into the real world and when they did, the duo found themselves in the basement of castle Oblivion which was filled with heartless.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Fighting their way to the upper floors, Riku and Mickey caught glimpses of their friends similarly fighting through the crowds and tried to catch up to them. Sadly, the trio vanished before they could reach them, not a single clue to their whereabouts was left behind which left Mickey right back at square one upon his search.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mickey wasn’t sure where to go from there, so he sought out Yen Sid for guidance and offered to take Riku along but the teen refused; he had been deeply disturbed from his experiences with Ansem and wanted to make sure that every ounce of the man was purged from his heart, leading to him parting ways from Mickey so that he may find himself in the worlds.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The mouse pleaded with master Yen Sid to help him locate his friends, but unfortunately the wizard could not aid him; wherever Donald and Goofy had wound up, it was beyond even his watchful eyes. The only thing the wizard could tell Mickey was that his friends were still alive and their hearts were fully intact, which made the keyblade wielder feel a bit better.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Knowing that all he could do was wait until his friends resurfaced, Mickey passed the time by working closely with master Yen Sid as a peacekeeper for the worlds; after all, with Ansem’s defeat there would be quite a bit of chaos from the power vacuum he left behind. A power vacuum that the newly formed ‘organization thirteen’ took advantage of to spread their army of nobodies across the realm.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was during this year long period that Mickey came across records of a second Ansem: Ansem the wise, a scientist that had been doing research into the forces of light and darkness as well as the hearts and was responsible for many of the great discoveries across the kingdom hearts worlds such as gummi ships, knowledge of hearts, and sea salt ice cream. After a conflict with his apprentice Xehanort, Ansem disappeared from the realm and left all of his work behind for anyone who wished to utilize it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sensing that such knowledge may be useful for coming conflicts, Yen Sid tasked Mickey with searching for Ansem the wise’s notes as well as any clues to his current fate and/or whereabouts in between his work for holding back the forces of darkness.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>“And then you guys resurfaced a few days ago along with organization thirteen, I started lending a bit of aid from the sidelines while trying to figure out what the organization’s plans were before stumbling on something important here in Hollow Bastion, which brings us to the here and now.” Mickey explained, finishing up his story.</p><p>“Garsh.” Goofy said. “Ya sure have been busy all of this time.”</p><p>Mickey shrugged. “So have you. Do you know how many realms I passed through that treated you guys as living legends? You’re practically celebrities here, I’m almost jealous! Speaking of, where have you all been for the past year?”</p><p>“Asleep in some weird stasis pods.” Donald flatly replied.</p><p>“Seriously?”</p><p>Sora nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy to think about.”</p><p>“Enough about us though, why did you call us to Hollow Bastion?”</p><p>“Right, because of this.” Mickey said as he pushed open a set of doors to a rather messy study filled with shattered glass containers, scattered books, and cobwebs.</p><p>The mouse calmly walked over to one of the empty walls, running his hands over the surface of it until he found a hidden button and pressed down on it; this caused the entire section of wall to dissipate and expose a hidden passageway.</p><p>Donald let out a tired sigh. “Of course, another secret room. When isn’t there one of these in a castle…”</p><p>Mickey led the group into the hidden area, the narrow hallway giving way to an utterly massive chamber that was stacked high with row after row of servers, seemingly stretching forever. All of it hooked up to a single computer terminal.</p><p>As they got closer, Sora piped up. “So...you don’t know where Riku is?”</p><p>“Well…” Mickey began. “While we did start working together Riku’s off on a secret mission to help us defeat organization thirteen, I can’t tell you where he is, at least not yet.”</p><p>Sora’s head fell, the boy clearly demoralized by the news, but Mickey wasn’t one to let a friend stay sad like that.</p><p>“Hey come on, cheer up. You’ll see him soon enough, we just have to stop the nobodies first and then you guys can have all the time in the world to hang out again.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah you’re right.” Sora said, perking up. “So what is all this anyways?”</p><p>“Ansem the wise’s computer. I found it while searching Hollow Bastion for any clues to where he might have gone, this terminal may hold the key to finding the old scholar or at least contain a bunch of his research that could help us.” Mickey explained.</p><p>“Really! That’s great!”</p><p>“It would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that I can’t figure out the password. I gave it a couple tries but nothing I came up with worked, I’ve never been great with computers.”</p><p>“What have ya tried so far?” Goofy said.</p><p>“Well let’s see I’ve tried…”</p><p>At that moment Donald’s attention was momentarily taken by a fly buzzing in his ear, the annoying sensation irking him. The duck tried to smack the insect when it landed on his hand, only for it to harmlessly fly out from under his hand and start buzzing right in front of his face.</p><p>Gritting his teeth, Donald started swinging at the bug to try and squash it only for the fly to continuously dodge and weave around his blows which made the duck get angrier and angrier until he finally managed to get a clear shot at it when it landed on the computer terminal’s keyboard, the duck bringing his fist down upon it with a loud slam.</p><p>That proved to be a mistake.</p><p>The very second Donald hands banged against the terminal’s keyboard, a foreboding voice sounded off from it.</p><p>“ABUSE OF COMPUTER TERMINAL DETECTED, DEFENSE SYSTEM ACTIVATED.” The voice said.</p><p>“What the- Donald! What did you do?!” Mickey exclaimed.</p><p>“I’m sorry! It was an-” The duck was cut off when a series of lasers shot out from behind the quartet and froze them all in place, the light show cutting the heroes up into a series of cubes that were then sucked into the computer, leaving nothing but an empty room behind.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Donald awoke to the sensation of something shaking his unconscious form, a pair of hands pushing against his side.</p><p>“Come on Donald! Get up!” Mickey said.</p><p>Donald groaned and sat back up, trying to rub some of the sleep out of his eyes as he gazed as his new surroundings. To his surprise, everything was made up of cubes and neon lights, like some old arcade game from the eighties; when Donald looked down at himself he realized that his standard robes were gone and had been replaced with this glowing blue outfit that may have been better suited for a game of laser tag.</p><p>“What happened?” the mage asked.</p><p>“From what I can tell, we got sucked into the computer.” the keyblade wielder replied. “Donald, there’s a whole world in here!”</p><p>“A digital world? Now I’ve seen everything.” Donald said, knowing perfectly well that wasn’t true.</p><p>“This might actually work out, if we’re in Ansem’s computer then maybe we’ll be able to find the password to access his research in here.”</p><p>“That might have to wait Mick, look!” Goofy pointed over the edge of a ledge.</p><p>The dog’s companions ran over to his side and gasped when they saw Sora on a lower platform, being led away by a group of digital heartless armed with spears.</p><p>“That can’t be good.” Mickey remarked.</p><p>Donald tried to summon up his staff and let out a breath of relief when the magic focus manifested itself in his grasp, at least magic still worked here. “Well come on then, we’d better go rescue him. Goofy, you rush them from the front and draw their attention with Mickey backing you up, I’ll provide some covering fire from here.”</p><p>The duck then turned to his rodent friend. “If you were looking to prove how good you are with that keyblade, now would be a good time.”</p><p>Mickey nodded and followed Goofy as he leapt down to the lower level with a battle cry.</p><p>As Donald readied up a thunder spell, a smile creeped onto his face. Even if things had gone a bit wrong, it was still nice to have Mickey back again.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>“Oh I do love a happy reunion.” Webby swooned. “Long lost friends finally seeing each other again after going through numerous trials.”</p><p>“Do you think he still has the keyblade? I mean he never brought it up but he’d have just as much reason to keep it a secret from us as Donald did.” Huey said.</p><p>“It’s possible. If Donald still has his magic I would assume Mickey Mouse kept his weapon as well.” Violet replied.</p><p>“I guess the mouse wasn’t lying when he said he does all of his own stunts.” Lena remarked.</p><p>Louie chuckled. “As someone who actually saw him do an action scene, I can tell you that Uncle Mickey has never used a stunt double in his life.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and Mickey Mouse joins the party! Yes I know this was a bit of an exposition dump, but this is the most development the mouse has gotten so far; he's earned one.</p><p>Now unlike canon, I'm gonna have the mouse be MUCH more involved in the group's adventures. He spent a good two years trying to find them again and he's in no hurry to let them go again, he's gonna stick around all the way until the end. </p><p>Also remember that this isn't king Mickey, this is ducktales Mickey Mouse who's just as much a fish out of water as his friends. So there's gonna be a lot of stuff king Mickey would know that Mickey Mouse doesn't; he's also more prone to...losing his cool.</p><p>you'll see what I mean in the next chapter. &gt;:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Broken Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so how about that finale huh? Really didn't see that twist coming...</p><p>keep in mind that this doesn't really change what I've got planned for the rest of this fic, I'll have to make a few alterations to the ending but it's more or less the same endgame in mind; although I am going to have to divert even more from canon for...certain reasons. And I still fully plan to see this through to the end.</p><p>anyways, enjoy the chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Scrooge wasn’t very happy right now. Here he was, a brand new adventure to snatch up the soultaker sword and his favorite team of adventurers were nowhere to be found.</p><p>One would likely question the old duck’s decision to bring children into dangerous and mystical locales in order to find rare and powerful artifacts that could very well bring about the end of the world, but Scrooge was well aware that those kids were just as capable adventurers as he was when he was their age. He couldn’t wait to see what they’d accomplish when they grew up, they were all destined for something great.</p><p>Now if only he could find them.</p><p>“Looking for something?”</p><p>Scrooge looked over his shoulder to see Donald with a toolbox hoisted over his shoulder, no doubt on the way to tune up his houseboat or repair another appliance that had somehow self destructed again.</p><p>“Yes actually. Have you seen the boys and Webby around? I need their help on another adventure!”</p><p>“Nope sorry.” Donald replied with a shrug. “Like I told you before Scrooge, those three have been pretty skittish lately. But you said-”</p><p>“That it’s nothing to worry about, I know I know.” Scrooge sighed. “Well I’m not going to get that sword without them, I’ll just have to keep looking.”</p><p>“Alright and Scrooge, if you catch them in the middle of whatever they’ve been doing lately, please tell me what it is.”</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>This entire digital world may have been the most confusing world Donald has ever ventured to. He may have been more experienced since he had first been stranded in this universe and sent off on a journey spanning several fantastical worlds, but a digital world was something he never could have anticipated.</p><p>Unlike all the previous worlds they had visited, this one didn’t just change their forms but how their abilities worked as well. For starters they had these free floating meters that constantly followed them around, measuring their health and (in Donald’s case) magic that were depleted when they took a hit or used their abilities and could be recharged by picking up orbs that digital heartless dropped; it was weird only being able to cast a certain number of spells before having to fall back mid fight to let his ‘magic meter’ recharge as opposed to getting tired out from over exerting himself, for some reason they never got tired in this world so much as they just had their meters run out. If that wasn’t strange enough, Donald could only access a small portion of spells from his overall repertoire that he had to equip and swap in yet another menu; the whole thing felt eerily familiar to those RPG games that Della had started to get obsessed with near the end of high school. Don’t even get him started on those weird light-cycle games they kept getting forced to participate in.</p><p>The whole situation was only exacerbated by the fact that they were down a key blade wielder. Despite taking out the heartless that had been keeping Sora prisoner, a heartless commander named Sark showed up and absconded with the boy while mumbling something about ‘MCP’ whatever that was and forced the group to fight their way through this strange digitized world. Even with their new friend Tron acting as a guide, it was still a difficult task.</p><p>Luckily Mickey was more than capable of filling Sora’s role in the party.</p><p>Donald wasn’t sure what kind of training Yen Sid put Mickey through, but whatever it was it made the mouse a force to be reckoned with. His skills with a keyblade were just as good if not better than Sora’s and Mickey’s short stature (at least compared to the various denizens of the realms) made him incredibly hard to hit as he kept leaping around the battlefield and cutting down heartless left and right, the rodent fit into the party like a glove.</p><p>Of course it wasn’t all business, fighting side by side again as fellow warriors of the light; it felt like old times, when everything was simple and they weren’t caught in the middle of a massive conflict between light and darkness. The playful jabs they launched at each other, the way they watched each other’s backs through every brawl, all of it reminded Donald just how much he cherished Goofy and Mickey.</p><p>Although, While they were getting along like Mickey never even left, that didn’t change the fact that Donald could clearly see that something was wrong with the mouse; something he was hiding from him and Goofy.</p><p>For starters, Donald felt like Mickey was being a bit clingy. Granted the mouse was always physically affectionate, with both friends and family alike, but the way he stuck to them seemed excessive even by his usual standards. No matter what, the mouse never strayed too far from the group or let either of his companions out of his sight for even a moment; almost as if Mickey was scared that they’d vanish into thin air if he left them alone.</p><p>That would explain the fear in the mouse’s eyes. Donald didn’t notice it at first, the duck blinded by the sheer joy of having his long lost friend back, but once that wore off he was able to get a better look at Mickey and realized that this wasn’t the same mouse he knew and loved; something had CHANGED. His cheery demeanor was still there as was his wit, but if one was to take a closer look it would seem as though the mouse was almost...forcing a smile at times. Behind his tooth grin was just the slightest hint of turmoil and fear, one that the keyblade wielder was trying to hide at any and all costs.</p><p>Donald started to wonder if there was anything from Mickey’s story he had ‘conveniently’ left out when filling them in the first time.</p><p>“Head’s up!” Goofy shouted as he blocked a plasma bolt that would have struck Donald.</p><p>‘Whoops, got lost in thought again.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>The duck quickly got his butt back in gear and resumed the fight, he could always take the time to reflect later, right now he had a computer bug to squash.</p><p>After fighting their way through god knows how many digital heartless, they had made their way to the central computer core where the big bad of the world, the master control program, was keeping Sora prisoner for some nefarious plan. The poor boy had been hooked up to some kind of machine high above the rest of them, thankfully he was relatively unharmed.</p><p>All they had to do was keep the MCP’s attention along with Sark’s while Tron did his thing and hacked into a nearby terminal to deactivate the program entirely.</p><p>Speaking of which….</p><p>“TRON! HOW ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE?!” Donald shouted as he blasted the Sark with a frost spell.</p><p>“Almost done, just...a...little...more.” the program replied.</p><p>“WOO HOO!”</p><p>Donald’s head whipped around to see that Mickey had somehow gotten onto the commander’s back, keyblade pressed up against his throat, and was now riding him like a wild bull.</p><p>“GET OFF ME YOU PATHETIC USER!” The rogue program screamed as he got dangerously close to the edge of the pit the MCP was housed in</p><p>Seizing the moment, Goofy and Donald shot each other a knowing nod and rushed Sark, the dog aiming for his left leg with the duck aiming for his right. With their combined efforts, Sark went tumbling into the pit while Mickey quickly hopped off his shoulders to join the others on solid ground.</p><p>And not a moment too soon either, as Tron let out a whoop “I’ve got it!”</p><p>The MCP suddenly froze, it’s form going from an angry red to a much calmer blue, a look of fear crossing it’s face right before it imploded in on itself and vanished into thin air. As the program vanished, so did the device keeping Sora prisoner; causing the boy to start plummeting to the ground at a rapid pace.</p><p>“I’ve got him!” Goofy shouted as he lept in the air in an impressive show of agility, scooped Sora into his arms, and landed safely a short distance away from the rest of the group.</p><p>All this adventuring has really put the dog into good shape.</p><p>“Thanks guys.” Sora said. “I owe you one.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it.” Goofy said.</p><p>“So fellas, what now?” Asked Mickey as he approached the duo.</p><p>“Well with the MCP gone, I can finally start rebuilding and undo all the damage the program caused to the mainframe.” Tron remarked. “As well as send you all back to the world you came from.”</p><p>Donald crossed his arms. “Hang on, we can’t leave without the passwords to the computer.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about that, I’ll see to it that the password is changed to my new friends: Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Mickey.”</p><p>“Really? Thank you!” Said Mickey.</p><p>“It’s the least I could do after you all helped me defeat the MCP.” Tron smiled. “Best of luck to all of you on your journey!”</p><p>“Same to you. See ya Tron!” Sora chimed.</p><p>With a few clicks of the console at the other end of the room, Donald found his vision being flooded with a bright light and his form disassembled just as it had been when they first entered this world. It didn’t matter how many times this happened, Donald would never be able to get used to this.</p><p>Next thing they knew, the four of them were standing back inside of Ansem the wise’s computer room with the aforementioned computer displaying a pixelated version of them, the words ‘thank you’ typed below it.</p><p>“Did it work?” Asked Goofy.</p><p>Mickey cracked his knuckles. “Only one way to find out.”</p><p>The mouse hopped onto the terminal and started clicking away at the keyboard, much to everyone’s pleasure the computer accepted their names as the password and granted them access to the device.</p><p>“Alright! Maybe now we can get some answers about what’s going on!”</p><p>Donald walked up to Mickey. “Try ‘Organization thirteen’.”</p><p>The mouse did a search for the info, only for the computer to say “DATA IS CORRUPTED.”</p><p>“What the-”</p><p>“How about ‘nobodies’?” Goofy suggested.</p><p>Mickey punched it in, getting the same result as before.</p><p>“No…” the mouse rapidly began typing in other search terms but each and every one of them came back as corrupted data that couldn’t be read.</p><p>Mickey sat back in his chair and groaned. “Great, just great. It’s all useless.”</p><p>“So, we went through that whole computer world for nothing?” asked Sora.</p><p>“Yep, looks like we’re right back at square one again guys.”</p><p>“So? We never let a little setback stop us before, let’s-” Donald was interrupted when a loud boom suddenly shook the entire castle, the sounds of crumbling stone and shattering glass echoing through the halls.</p><p>“What was that?!” Exclaimed Sora.</p><p>Within moments, another member of the Hollow Bastion Restoration committee, Leon, ran into the room with shallow breaths.</p><p>“You need to get outside, NOW. We have a situation.”</p><p>The group looked at each other nervously but still followed Leon out of the castle, straight into the raging battle that was occurring outside.</p><p>The cliff they were standing on gave them a great view of the situation at hand: Hollow Bastion was being invaded, hordes upon hordes of heartless flowing through the streets and battling it out with the other restoration committee members; who were, surprisingly enough, holding their own against the army of shadows.</p><p>But that wasn’t what Donald was looking at, his focus was upon the raven haired duck floating high above the battle while laughing her head off at the chaos she created. It was clear Magica had spearheaded this whole operation and was trying to seize control of Hollow Bastion for Maleficent.</p><p>“MAGICA!!!” Donald yelled.</p><p>The sorceress’ head whipped towards the mage, her beak stretching into a maniac grin when she spotted her nemesis.</p><p>“Donald Duck! What a lovely surprise! You’re just in time to see me conquer my first realm!” Magica cackled.</p><p>Donald summoned his staff. “Not on my watch you don’t.”</p><p>“Oh, so it’s a rematch you’re looking for.” Said Magica. “Well I’m more than happy to-”</p><p>Donald flung a fireball at the green feathered duck to interrupt her monologue, only for his eyes to widen in shock when she summoned up a forcefield that blocked off the spell entirely.</p><p>Magica laughed. “That won’t work again Donald. As I was saying, I’d be more than happy to oblige, it would give me the chance to show off some of the new tricks that my friend Maleficent taught me. Like this!”</p><p>De Spell waved her staff and sent out a cascading bolt of green lightning that blasted apart the cliff face out from under them, sending all four of them plummeting to the canyon below.</p><p>It was a good thing they all had learned how to glide through the air with magic, otherwise they may have very well ended up as a series of red stains on the ground.</p><p>Sora skidded to a stop right next to Donald. “This isn’t good, she’s gotten a lot stronger since last time.”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter.” Donald shot back. “She’s still the same pathetic trickster with an overblown ego, I beat her before and I can do it again. Besides, we’ve got her outnumbered”</p><p>“I don’t think so.” Said Mickey, pointing down the canyon.</p><p>Following his finger, Donald was met with the sight of several thousand heartless of all shapes and sizes, filling up the canyon a few dozen yards away from them; and hovering above them all, on a throne made of rubble, was Magica De Spell.</p><p>“Aren’t these heartless just the best? They’re the perfect mindless minions for a mistress of darkness for myself, powerful and endlessly loyal to those who have given themselves to the darkness.” Magica chuckled. “Oh if only I had some of these when battling Scrooge, I would have gotten that number one dime ages ago.”</p><p>The group collectively drew out their arms and stood at the ready, waiting for the heartless and Magica to make the first move.</p><p>“Eager as always huh?” Said Magica. “I’m going to enjoy watching the heartless tear the hearts from your pathetic bodies.”</p><p>The sorceress snapped her fingers and all at once, the crowd of heartless surged forward like a wave of shadows.</p><p>“CHARGE!” Sora shouted.</p><p>The heroes quickly leapt into the fray and started knocking down heartless left and right. The massive horde quickly separated the group as they got deeper into it, but each and every one of them were no strangers to taking on heartless and they all managed to stand their ground despite the overwhelming numbers.</p><p>Mickey and Sora carved through the heartless like a hot knife through butter, hacking and slashing at every creature that got within reach and freeing their hearts.</p><p>Goofy was muscling his way through the crowd, making use of his shield to both bash the heartless and protect himself from their blows. Seeing the dog beat down a heartless while five more were clinging to his back was an amusing sight.</p><p>And Donald? The heartless couldn’t even get close to him. The duck had a wide range of spells that were absolutely perfect for crowd control and he was utilizing every single one of them; from walls of fire to glaciers, he was blowing away entire chunks of the crowd alongside his friends.</p><p>It was a hard fight at first, the odds utterly stacked against them, but the massive casualties the heartless suffered began to take their toll and the group started to push back against them, going on the offensive.</p><p>“Come on everybody! We can do this!” Donald shouted, frying several heartless with a thunder spell.</p><p>“He right we can- hold on…” Sora briefly paused his assault. “Are they running away?”</p><p>The boy wasn’t wrong, the heartless were indeed retreating back into the canyon; which was a massive red flag.</p><p>The heartless NEVER fled from a battle, they just kept fighting and fighting until they were destroyed, creatures of pure instinct. For them to be running away meant something was seriously wrong.</p><p>More concerning, was the fact that Magica was no longer sitting on her throne above the brawl. In fact she seemed to have disappeared entirely.</p><p>‘Typical, the moment she starts losing Magica turns tail and-‘</p><p>“WATCH OUT!” Goofy shouted.</p><p>Donald spun around on his heel and saw that Magica had somehow gotten behind him and fired another bolt of sickly green energy at him, the spell heading straight for its intended target. It would have hit too if not for the intervention of a certain lanky shield bearer.</p><p>The whole world seemed to come to a crawl, Donald was frozen on the spot as Magica’s attack streaked towards him and found himself frozen with fear for the first time in a long time. Then, from seemingly nowhere, Goofy barreled into him and pushed the duck out of harm’s way; unfortunately for the dog, he didn’t have enough time to raise his mighty shield and took the blast square in the chest, sending him flying backwards and slamming into one of the canyon walls before falling to the ground. Goofy convulsed wildly for a few seconds, arms and legs twitching in pain as the green magic ran over his form, and then he went perfectly still; laying on his back, not moving so much as a muscle</p><p>“Whoops, I was aiming for the mage.” Said Magica, snapping Donald out of his stupor. “Oh well, killing your friend is a nice consolation prize. Anywho, I’ve got a castle to conquer, goodbye!”</p><p>Magica flew off but Donald didn’t give her any thought, he was too busy rushing over to his fallen friend in an utter panic.</p><p>“GOOFY! GOOFY!” Donald screamed as he tried to shake his friend awake. “Come on! Get up! We can’t do this without you!”</p><p>Sora was on the other side of him in seconds. “Come on! Wake up!”</p><p>But Goofy didn’t respond, he didn’t move at all, he just laid there like a dead- No, Donald couldn’t start thinking like that.</p><p>“I’m sorry about the ice cream incident! I promise I’ll make it up to you, just please wake up!” Donald desperately exclaimed.</p><p>“G-Goofy?” Mickey stuttered as he approached the two, his cheery demeanor was completely gone and had been replaced with one of primal fear.</p><p>Donald pressed his head against the dog’s chest, hoping to hear something, anything; but it was just silence. Goofy was gone from this world and it was all his fault, if only he had been paying more attention, if only he had gotten out of the way, if only...if only...</p><p>The duck started crying into his friend’s chest. “No, Goofy, no…”</p><p>“This isn't happening.” Sora said in disbelief. “This can’t be happening…it can’t.”</p><p>Mickey’s eyes widened when he realized what had happened, only for them to quickly contort into an expression of anger, one almost never seen on the happy go lucky mouse.</p><p>“She’s going to pay for this.” Mickey growled.</p><p>Donald dug his fingers into Goofy’s still chest; It wasn’t fair, Goofy was supposed to come home safely with the rest of them, he had a wife and son waiting for him for god’s sake. Magica took that away from him, she took him away from them and now they had lost a friend forever. Donald could sense a familiar feeling begin to flow through his veins, greeting him like an old family member, a feeling of pure anger, frustration, and rage; all of it directed at the sorceress that dared strike down one of Donald’s best friends.</p><p>Donald stood up and summoned his staff back into his hand, barely restraining the negative feelings bubbling up inside of him. “Oh yes, she’s gonna pay.”</p><p>“I’m glad we’re on the same page then.”</p><p>If Donald’s mind hadn’t been so preoccupied with thinking up all the creative ways he was going to torture Magica for killing Goofy, he might have realized that the fury woven into Mickey’s words was rather foreboding.</p><p>The duo soon dashed off into the canyon, completely and utterly determined to get their pound of flesh from Magica. Leaving Sora behind to grieve Goofy, failing to notice that a few of his fingers had started to twitch as they left.</p><p>Naturally, several heartless started coming at them to both slay the heroes and protect their mistress. But with the combined rage of Donald and Mickey flowing into their attacks, none of the shadow creatures stood even a ghost of a chance.</p><p>Donald and Mickey just kept pushing forward, crushing anything and anyone that tried to get in their way in a berserker rage, with any pain and exhaustion they might have felt was completely overshadowed by the anger flowing through their forms.</p><p>Right as they ran into a clearing in the canyon, Donald jumped back when a burst of magical energy shot at his feet, the duck’s head snapping up towards the sorceress that fired it with a feral growl.</p><p>“What part of ‘I’m too busy to deal with you’ did you not-” Magica paused when she noticed the absolutely spiteful looks the two heroes were sending her. “Oh, did you come to avenge your friend? How stupidly noble.”</p><p>“Shut up and fight Magica.” Donald snapped.</p><p>“Ooh, ‘shut up and fight’ he says. You honestly believe you stand a chance against me?”</p><p>“After completely crushing you the first time, I like my odds.”</p><p>Magica just laughed. “You know what? Just for that, I’ll give you a sporting chance.”</p><p>The female duck snapped her fingers and the heartless surged forth once more, sweeping Mickey away in a mess of yellow eyes and black limbs while pushing Donald towards the sorceress. The creatures then formed up around the duo in a circle, leaving a wide open space in the sea of heartless where they stood.</p><p>“You and me, in a one on one magic battle, may the best magician win.” Magica stated. “Which of course will be me.”</p><p>“Sounds great.” Donald replied with a twirl of his staff. “After I’m done beating you, we can talk about what Maleficent has planned.”</p><p>Magica attempted to blast Donald for what must have been the fourth time today, but this time he was ready for it and conjured up a shield of his own to block the blow, swiftly returning the volley with a fireball which Magica met with one of her own.</p><p>The two were soon trading blows and, unlike their last fight, this one was much more of an even match. Magica could meet Donald’s raw power and match him blow for blow, spell for spell; it was pretty obvious that her partnership with Maleficent had seriously paid off for the duck. It certainly didn’t help that while his anger gave him much more raw power, it clouded his mind to a degree and made it harder for him to conjure his spells properly.</p><p>He may have landed a few solid strikes here and there, but Magica managed to nail him just as often; they had essentially fought each other to a standstill. At least until Magica decided to cheat.</p><p>Donald spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and spun around to block a heartless that had tried to jump at him, only to leave himself wide open to an attack from Magica that he was just barely able to dodge.</p><p>“Hey! That’s cheating!” Donald protested.</p><p>Magica flung another spell at Donald. “I don’t care! Winning is winning boy!”</p><p>Against the combined assault of Magica and her heartless minions, Donald started losing ground very quickly. The mage only managed to hold out for a few more minutes before his opponent hit a decisive blow and sent Donald sprawling, staff flying out of his grip, and his entire body literally screaming in pain.</p><p>He attempted to scramble back to his feet, only for a heartless to ram into his side and knock the wind out of him, leaving the duck lying on his back in a daze; his rage leaving his body as the hopelessness of the situation began to set in.</p><p>A firm heel slamming onto his chest caused him to cry out in pain, Magica’s staff entering his vision shortly after.</p><p>“Hmmm, I could kill you, or maybe I could turn you into my new pet, or perhaps send you to the realm of darkness. Oh decisions, decisions.” Magica said. “I know I’ll-”</p><p>“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” A voice cut through the air.</p><p>Donald wasn’t exactly sure what happened in the next few moments; one minute Magica had the duck completely at her mercy and the next she was being tackled off of him by a red and black blur. Once Donald found the strength to sit back up, he saw that Mickey had some how freed himself from the heartless and was attacking Magica with a look of absolute murder on his face, the mouse hacking and slashing with animalistic aggression.</p><p>Magica tried to defend herself, putting some distance between her and Mickey; but the mouse kept himself up close and personal with the sorceress, never once relenting in his assault. Even the heartless couldn’t save her as they were swatted away without the keyblade wielder so much as missing a beat. Eventually whittling down the army to just a few small groups.</p><p>Focusing on the mouse, Donald slowly realized that Mickey was angrier than he had ever seen him before. This wasn’t your average everyday anger, this was a pure, primal rage that had been fully unleashed. Which worried Donald, the Mickey he was watching wasn’t anything like the one he knew before.</p><p>It wasn’t until the mouse knocked Magica to the ground and pinned her with a foot, that Donald spotted the look on his face which caused the duck’s eyes to widen in realization at what he was seeing; it was the face of someone who had been completely and utterly pushed over the edge, their minds completely consumed by anger and grief which could push even the kindest men to do unspeakable acts. Donald would know, he wore that same face almost a decade ago when he killed-</p><p>‘No, Mickey wouldn’t go that far...would he?’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>“You’re NOT going to hurt anyone else, not anymore.” Mickey growled as he slowly raised his keyblade over his head, preparing what would no doubt be a fatal strike.</p><p>Donald ignored the pain and snatched up his staff, rushing towards the duo. He wasn’t sure what he was gonna do when he reached them, all he knew was that he needed to stop Mickey.</p><p>Donald got between the two just as Mickey brought his weapon down in a cleaving motion, the mage narrowly blocking the blow with his staff and silently thanking Merlin for such excellent craftsmanship.</p><p>“Donald? What are you doing?” Mickey sputtered.</p><p>“Stopping you from making a mistake Mickey.” The duck replied. “You can’t kill her.”</p><p>“She took Goofy from us Donald! She was going to take you away too! We have to stop her!”</p><p>“Not like this! We’re not murderers Mickey!”</p><p>Mickey pressed his keyblade harder against Donald’s staff. “I’m not asking you to compromise your morals Donald, I just want you to stand aside and let me do what I need to.”</p><p>“What you need to do?!” Donald said in disbelief. “Mickey, killing is never the answer! It won’t bring Goofy back, it won’t make you feel better! The only thing it’s gonna do is leave you with a weight on your shoulders that will haunt you for the rest of your life!”</p><p>“And what would you know?!”</p><p>“BECAUSE I’VE CROSSED THAT LINE BEFORE!” Donald screamed.</p><p>That seemed to finally bring Mickey back to some level of clarity. “W-what?”</p><p>“I’ve...I’ve killed before Mickey. I was pushed to my absolute limit just like you and gave into what felt ‘right’ at the time; even if it was to stop someone really dangerous, it was a moment of weakness that I’ve regretted ever since.”</p><p>Mickey’s expression softened in understanding. “Donald…”</p><p>“I’ll have to carry the knowledge that I’m a killer with me for the rest of my life, but you don’t have to.” Donald pleaded. “Please, just stop before you get any blood on your hands.”</p><p>“I-I-I’m sorry, I just...I didn’t…”</p><p>Mickey dropped his keyblade and started to sob, Donald wrapping him up in a hug shortly after.</p><p>“It’s okay Mickey, it’s gonna be okay.”</p><p>A swirl of wind behind them broke up the deep friendship moment. Looking up, the two of them saw that Magica had gathered up her remaining heartless and had begun to flee through a portal.</p><p>“I’m not fleeing by the way! I’ve just got more important matters to attend to than toying with you fools!” Magica shouted.</p><p>Donald may have been inclined to believe her, if it wasn’t for the fact that her eyes were still somewhat widened in fear from earlier; she knew just as well as he did that she had come within inches of death just now.</p><p>“Wait we have to-”</p><p>“We can worry about her later Mickey, right now I wanna make sure my friend is okay.” Donald said.</p><p>“HEY FELLAS!”</p><p>Both Mickey and Donald’s heads snapped up in response to the familiar voice, the duo looking at each other as if wordlessly asking if their friend had heard it too, before slowly turning towards the path they had come from to see none other than Goofy and Sora standing there, no worse for wear.</p><p>“Have I lost it or-”</p><p>“No, I see him too.” Donald said as he slowly approached the dog.</p><p>“Ya know that really hurt.” Goofy remarked as he rubbed the lightly burnt area where the spell connected.</p><p>Donald said nothing, he just gripped his staff, wound up, and swung it as hard as he could against one of Goofy’s legs; the dog immediately gripped the now sore appendage and started hopping up and down with a cry of pain.</p><p>“That hurt too!”</p><p>“Don’t ever scare us like that again! You hear me?!” Donald shouted, biting back tears of joy and relief.</p><p>Mickey ran up shortly after, leaping into Goofy’s arms to give the lanky knight a big hug.</p><p>“I’m so glad you’re still alive.” Mickey whimpered.</p><p>“Gawsh Mick, I’ve taken bigger hits than that before! It’ll take a lot more than a magic trick to get rid of me.”</p><p>“Wait a minute, how did you get back up? I thought your heart stopped beating.” Said Donald.</p><p>“Well it did.” said Sora. “but after you guys left it sorta just...started back up again, maybe Goofy was a bit sturdier than Magica thought.”</p><p>“As good an explanation as any I guess.”</p><p>Goofy looked down at Mickey who was now burying his face into his chest, letting out gentle, choked sobs.</p><p>“I thought you were gone, I thought I was going to be alone again.” the mouse blubbered.</p><p>“Uh fellas? Did we miss something on the way over?” Goofy asked.</p><p>Donald nervously twisted his staff in his hands. “I’ll fill you in later, let’s just mop up the remaining heartless first.”</p><p>Goofy and Sora nodded, the latter gently pulling Mickey off who gave one last ounce of resistance before letting go.</p><p>They were gonna need a lot of ice cream to help with this.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Starting to feel better?” Asked Goofy.</p><p>Mickey pulled his lips off his ice cream pop. “Yes, much. I can see why Ansem the wise raved about sea salt ice cream so much in his journals, this stuff is amazing!”</p><p>It hadn’t taken them long to clear out the rest of Hollow Bastion, without Magica commanding them the heartless became a disorganized mess and were easily mowed down through the combined efforts of the quartet of heroes and the Hollow Bastion residents. Once that had been accomplished, the group decided that they had earned a bit of time to rest and chose to spend that time sitting on a set of stairs in town with some sea salt ice cream to try and cheer Mickey up after a rather traumatic experience; after all, ice cream was the ultimate comfort food and the mouse was in dire need of comfort.</p><p>“Now that we’re all calm.” said Donald, biting into his ice cream. “Would you mind telling me what happened to you back there?”</p><p>“I just got a little upset, that’s all.” Mickey deflected.</p><p>“Mickey, you’re talking to an expert on anger. That was more than ‘a little upset’.”</p><p>Goofy placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come on Mickey, we’re your friends. You can tell us anything.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Sora sounded off in agreement. “No matter what it is, we’re with you.”</p><p>Mickey looked down at his half eaten ice cream pop and took in a deep breath.</p><p>“I was scared of being alone again.”</p><p>“Huh?” Donald said.</p><p>“You know how I told you guys that I nearly went crazy with fear during all those months when I was lost in that forest realm, all by myself with nobody to talk to?” Mickey explained. “Well that wasn’t the only reason things were so hard out there; about a week into it, on the days I could sleep, I started having these nightmares.”</p><p>“About what?” Said Sora, scooting closer.</p><p>“About Donald and Goofy. On the nights I actually managed to get some sleep, I kept having dreams about them forgetting about me all together...those came around on a good night; on the bad nights I saw them getting hurt, even dying.” Mickey said. “The fact that I had no idea where you were or if you were safe or not only made those nightmares worse, my best friends could have been captured or dead and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, stuck in those stupid woods! The thought of losing my best friends, that’s what scared me more than anything else.”</p><p>Mickey started gripping his ice cream tighter. “After Yen Sid took me under his wing, I made a pact with myself right then and there that if and when I saw you again, I would do everything I could to keep those dreams from coming true. So when Goofy dropped like that I felt like I had broken a promise to myself, that I failed you guys, and I just...snapped.”</p><p>Donald hummed and took another lick of his ice cream, not sure what to say.</p><p>“And when I saw Magica standing over you, Donald, about to kill you like I thought she did with Goofy, I felt like my worst nightmare was coming to life and I had to stop it no matter what.”</p><p>“So ya tried to kill her?” Goofy asked.</p><p>Mickey bowed his head and nodded. “I just couldn’t stand the idea of losing both my friends again after getting them back so soon.”</p><p>“You’re not gonna lose us Mickey.” Donald put a comforting hand on Mickey’s back. “We’re tough and we can take anything this whole universe can throw at us; the heartless, the nobodies, organization thirteen, and any other baddies that are out there.”</p><p>“You’re right, we’re like the three musketeers: one for all and all for one!” the mouse chuckled. “Thanks for talking me down back there, I would have never forgiven myself if I had gone through with killing her.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it.”</p><p>“If you don’t mind me asking though, who did you kill?”</p><p>Donald froze.</p><p>“I mean you said you crossed that line before, who was it?” Mickey asked.</p><p>“I...I’d rather not talk about it, too many bad memories.” Donald replied with a sigh.</p><p>“Fair enough.”</p><p>Sora gulped down the last of his ice cream, discarding the stick. “So now that everyone’s happy again, can Goofy and I talk about who we ran into while chasing after you guys?”</p><p>Donald looked back up at the boy. “What do you mean? Goofy what is he talking about?”</p><p>“Oh yeah! We came across one of them organization thirteen members, apparently they had manipulated Magica and Maleficent into attacking Hollow Bastion with their army of heartless?”</p><p>“What? Why would they do that?” mickey asked with a look of befuddlement.</p><p>Sora shrugged. “No idea, apparently they wanted us to destroy as many of the heartless as possible. But I can’t figure out why the organization would want that.”</p><p>“What could a group of intelligent nobodies gain from us destroying an army of heart...less…” Donald trailed off as a few important things started to occur to him:</p><p>First, organization thirteen was made up of thirteen nobodies that were much smarter and stronger than the more animalistic types that the group frequently fought; secondly, nobodies are the hollow shells left behind when someone loses their heart; third, when a heartless is destroyed their hearts are freed; fourth and finally, when a nobody is reunited with a heart they reform back into their original persona.</p><p>All the pieces started snapping into place. “The hearts…”</p><p>“Huh?” said Sora.</p><p>“The hearts! They wanted us to free the hearts!” Donald exclaimed, standing up from his spot on the stairs. “Organization thirteen is made up of nobodies that had been left behind after losing their hearts; when we destroyed all of those heartless, we freed their hearts and sent them right into the organization thirteen’s hands!”</p><p>The rest of the group had their eyes collectively shrink at the realization that their avian friend was completely right.</p><p>“Aw fyuck.” Goofy muttered.</p><p>“What do we do?” Mickey asked. “It’s not like we can stop destroying the heartless!”</p><p>“I say we bring the fight to the organization, they’ve gotta have a secret base somewhere, all we have to do is find it and launch an all out assault right on their doorstep..” Donald asserted.</p><p>“You sure that’s a good idea Donald?” Said Sora.</p><p>“We don’t have much of a choice, with how many hearts we’ve freed today, who knows what they’ll do with all of that power…”</p><p>Sora nodded and stood up with a stretch. “Well we’d better get searching then, you coming with us Mickey?”</p><p>“Of course, you’ll need all the help you can get to take on the organization and there’s no way I’m getting separated from my best pals again.” The mouse replied.</p><p>“Great! Against us, the organization doesn’t stand a chance!” Goofy cheered.</p><p>The rest of the squad was soon cheering with him and for the first time since they got here, Donald had a good feeling about the road that lay ahead.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*********************</p>
</div><p>“Ah, there you are!” Scrooge said as he abruptly flipped open the door to the attic.</p><p>The kids let out a slight yelp of panic before swiftly hiding Donald’s journal the best they could, thankfully the scottish billionaire didn’t seem to pick up on their startlement.</p><p>“Uncle Scrooge what, um, what is it?” Huey stuttered out.</p><p>“I’m glad ya asked lad, we’re headed off to Japan to collect the legendary soultaker-”</p><p>“Okay sure! Sounds great, let’s go!” Dewey said, interrupting the older duck.</p><p>“Ya...ya don’t want to hear about the artifact’s history?”</p><p>“You can tell us all about it on the way there!” Louie replied as he started pushing his uncle out of the attic. “Let’s just go!”</p><p>Scrooge was so busy being accosted by his beloved grand nephews, who were oddly eager to get this next adventure started, that he completely failed to notice the slight bulge under Dewey’s tucked in shirt. If he had noticed, he might have started getting suspicious about what they had been doing in the attic; but alas, he didn’t and merely chalked up their behavior to being caused by a boredom they desperately wanted to relieve.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Disney: NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE MICKEY A THREE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTER WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES AND EMOTIONAL HANGUPS!</p><p>Me: ha ha, mouse angst go brrrr.</p><p> </p><p>In all seriousness though, this one was a lot of fun to write simply because I got to flesh out Mickey's character a bit more; he may be one of the strongest keyblade wielders out there but he's still a man, one who cares about his friends a lot and completely loses it when they're in danger.</p><p>While on the topic of Mickey Mouse, I need your opinions on something: what would you think if I had him and Sora swap places for the kingdom hearts 3 arc? Had the mouse travel with Donald and Goofy through the Disney worlds while Sora takes point with Riku and Kairi in the realm of darkness after getting some serious training from master Yen Sid to ensure they could safely traverse the realm? Give me your honest answers, Okay?</p><p>Anywho, the kingdom hearts 2 finale is up next and after that will be kingdom hearts 3. We're getting ever closer to the end my friends.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. affairs of the heart.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>the climax of kingdom hearts 2 boys, let's go!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>The plane gently rumbled beneath the kids feet, Launchpad in a rare form of steady gliding today as opposed to his more frantic flight skills; lessons from Della must have been paying off.</p><p>Obtaining the soultaker sword had been a bit more difficult than anticipated, considering the evil spirit of it’s previous owner wasn’t willing to part with his beloved weapon so easily and put up one heck of a fight. But they took on guys like him for fun and managed to pry the weapon free from his gastly grasp where it would soon find much better use in the hands of the duck family. Now they were headed home for a bit of a break in between adventures.</p><p>Scrooge was seated up front, the quest having taken a bit more out of him than usual, and was utilizing their travel time to get a bit of a nap.</p><p>As for the kids….well I think it’s been fairly well established what they’ve been getting up to in their free time away from the prying eyes of adults. The four of them were hidden away between some of the storage crates in the back of the plane, arranged in another circle as they leafed through the journal; reading about yet another one of Donald’s epic battles.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**************************</p>
</div><p>It was kind of funny, ironic even, that this whole journey wound up taking them right back to where it all began.</p><p>Once they had become aware of organization thirteen’s plans; Donald, Mickey, Sora, and Goofy set out to try and find their secret base in the fabled ‘world that never was’. Of course with it being a secret base it wasn’t exactly easy to find, they had to do a lot of backtracking through the various worlds they had already visited in order to pick up clues to the world’s location.</p><p>When they traveled through all of those world’s, however, it quickly became apparent to Donald that just because they left the world in a better state than when they found it did not necessarily mean that all the world’s problems were solved. There were new enemies, new threats, and new problems that had arisen in their absence that they had to deal with in addition to organization thirteen trying to stop them; but with Mickey working along with them, dealing with such issues was a breeze.</p><p>In fact, dragging Mickey along on their adventures seemed to be exactly what the mouse needed. The whole incident in Hollow Bastion had left him more than a little shaken and even ice cream could only do so much; but it turned out that traveling to some exotic locations, making new friends, and beating up some organization thirteen members along the way managed to perk Mickey right back up. Who knew that fighting alongside a genie and beating down some huns could be so cathartic?</p><p>Having Sora around certainly didn’t hurt either.</p><p>The boy and the mouse hit it off almost right away, their easy going and fun-loving personalities working off each other perfectly, even giving each other various tips about keyblade use that they each picked up during their respective travels. It warmed Donald’s heart to see his friends, old and new alike, getting along together so well.</p><p>After beating down the baddies of various worlds and aiding fellow heroes in their quests, the group figured out that the entrance to the world that never was lay hidden within the walls of the manor they had woken up in at the start of this whole ordeal back in twilight town.</p><p>A quick trot through the various rooms of the manor eventually led them to the portal leading to their final showdown with organization thirteen. But instead of rushing in head first like they usually did, the group found themselves hesitating.</p><p>“Well, this is familiar ain’t it?” Goofy remarked. “Standing in front of a portal, about to head off into the unknown, facing another bad guy trying to destroy the worlds.”</p><p>Donald nodded. “I thought last time would have been the end of it, but that’s never the case.”</p><p>“You think this one will stick?” Asked Sora.</p><p>“I doubt it. Even if we beat organization thirteen, I’m sure someone even more powerful will just take their place.”</p><p>“Even if that happens, we’ll face it together.” Mickey added. “Right guys?”</p><p>“Right.” the other three sounded off.</p><p>“We’d better get moving then.” Goofy said.</p><p>Sora took the lead with Donald, Goofy, and Mickey following behind him as they stepped through the portal. Much like last time, Donald felt himself get transported into the next realm over with a rush of wind in his face and a blindingly bright light covering his vision; once they reached the other end, the group found themselves in a massive city with dark, abandoned streets and a glorious white castle hanging in the distance, the symbol of the nobodies stamped onto it’s towers. A silent wind whistled through the empty alleyways as the neon signs bathed the area in a pale glow.</p><p>In short, it was eerie in almost every way.</p><p>“I guess a portal straight to their castle was too much to ask for.” Donald remarked.</p><p>“Why would the organization even make all of this? I thought they were just empty shells?” Said Goofy.</p><p>“Yen Sid did say that the nobodies don’t really exist, maybe the organization was trying to prove them wrong.” Sora replied. “But the better question is, how do we get to that castle?”</p><p>“Well you’re gonna wanna take a left up ahead, go straight until you hit an alleyway with a cat symbol over it, and then just follow that until you reach the bridge to the castle.” Said a man with red hair and a black coat, leaning against one of the alleyway walls.</p><p>“Oh thanks!” Sora paused. “Wait a second…”</p><p>The human jumped back in surprise and pulled out his keyblade when he realized that one of the organization thirteen members was standing only a mere few feet away from them, his companions doing the same with their own weapons, only for the nobody to hold up his hands in a gesture of non-hostility.</p><p>“Woah, hold on guys. If I wanted to take you out, I wouldn’t have just come out in the open like this.” The redhead said.</p><p>“So what do you want?” Mickey replied, keeping his guard up. “I don’t think you stopped by just to say hello.”</p><p>“I want to help you.”</p><p>“What? Why?” Asked Sora.</p><p>“It’s just...I made a promise to someone a while back and I really want to keep it.” The nobody explained. “Plus you remind me a lot of an old friend of mine, you both have the same warmth and everything.”</p><p>“And why should we even trust you? You and the rest of the organization have tried to kill us, repeatedly.” Donald spat</p><p>“For starters, none of you know the area at all and you’re gonna need a guide; plus I know more than a few shortcuts that’ll take you straight to the castle.” said the nobody. “Of course, if you’d rather take your chances with some of the other locals, I won’t stop you.”</p><p>Out of curiosity, the group peered out of the alleyway and saw that several nobodies and heartless had started stumbling out into the streets; almost as if the creatures had sensed their presence and their numbers seemed to be growing by the second. With this world’s proximity to the darkness, Donald could only imagine how many of those monsters they’d have to fight through just to get to the castle itself.</p><p>Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the hordes of monsters were upon them, the group quickly arranged themselves into a huddle to discuss the matter at hand.</p><p>“Ya think we can trust him?” Asked Goofy.</p><p>“Nope, but I’m not sure running through monster infested streets is a better alternative.” Donald remarked before turning to his mouse friend. “What do you think, Mickey?”</p><p>“I say we give him the benefit of the doubt.” Said Mickey.</p><p>Sora raised an eyebrow. “Really, just like that?”</p><p>“Well hear me out on this. I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something...different about him; he doesn’t seem like the other nobodies, he just seems more ‘real’.”</p><p>“And if he betrays us?” Said Donald.</p><p>Mickey grinned. “If it comes to that, we can take him.”</p><p>The duck responded with a grin of his own, he couldn’t argue with that.</p><p>“Alright, we’ll go with you.” said Sora. “but if this is some kind of trick-”</p><p>“Yeah yeah, you’ll huff and you’ll puff and you’ll blow my ass away.” the nobody interjected. “The name’s Axel by the way.”</p><p>“We’re-”</p><p>“Sora, Donald, and Goofy. I know, we met back in castle oblivion a while back.”</p><p>Donald’s eyes widened. “We did?! Why don’t we remember any of that? In fact why don’t we remember anything from that castle?”</p><p>“That’s probably because of Namine.” Axel replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll meet her soon enough. Right now she’s busy rescuing Sora’s girlfriend.”</p><p>“Wait, you mean Kairi?!” Sora sputtered as his pupils shrunk to pinpricks.</p><p>“Oh, you didn’t know? My organization buddies strongarmed me into kidnapping her so you’d have a reason to keep fighting, she’s probably at our base right now waiting for her knight in...black clothes to come save her. For what it’s worth, I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea from the start.”</p><p>Sora’s mouth grew into a fierce scowl, Donald could practically hear the boy’s teeth grinding against one another as he tightly clenched his fists together. But before he could do something he might come to regret later on, Mickey placed a comforting hand upon the boy’s shoulder and got his attention.</p><p>“Don’t worry, we’ll get her back. No matter what it takes, I promise.” The mouse said.</p><p>Sora’s expression contorted into something unreadable, as if the human was trying to find a way to argue with his fellow keyblade wielder, until eventually it fell away into one of determination; the boy giving Mickey a confident nod.</p><p>“Love the confidence.” Axel interjected as he opened up a dark portal in the alleyway. “But I believe you’ve got a date with destiny right through here.”</p><p>“This isn’t some kind of-”</p><p>The redhead groaned. “For the last time, I’m not gonna betray you! If I wanted to take you guys down, I would have done it head on and not in some kinda trap; it’s not my style. Now can we please get going before my organization buddies find out what I’m up to?”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>The group followed Axel through his ‘shortcut’ and almost immediately Donald regretted doing so. Unlike all the other portals he had travel through in the past (and he’s used a lot of portals since arriving in this universe) this one felt just plain wrong; it felt as though he was walking through a sludge-like mixture that seeped into every crevice of his body, bathing him in an extremely unsettling sensation that clung to his feathers like tar, Donald couldn’t help but shudder as he made his way through the void.</p><p>Thankfully, the overall experience was short lived and he managed to come out on the other end of the portal in a matter of minutes along with his friends who looked similarly disturbed by their method of travel.</p><p>Except for Mickey, who Donald could only assume was used to dark portals from his time in the realm of darkness.</p><p>“And here we are boys! The castle that never was, home of organization thirteen and the nobodies.” Axel exclaimed with a wave of his arms.</p><p>In a stark contrast to the darkness that formerly encapsulated the castle at Hollow Bastion, the ‘castle that never was’ was almost blindingly bright with walls upon walls of pure white surrounding them on all sides, massive glass window panes hanging overhead that gave completely unobstructed views to the city outside, and odd bits of machinery occasionally peering out of the walls that gave the whole place a much more modern feel to it than Hollow Bastion. However, the castle did hold one thing in common with it’s heartless counterpart: the completely unsettling and foreboding feeling that encapsulated Donald just from being here.</p><p>“You getting the creeps too?” Asked Goofy.</p><p>Donald nodded. “Yeah, let’s just deal with the organization, grab Sora’s girlfriend, and get out of here.”</p><p>Sora’s head snapped over towards the duck with a fierce blush. “I said she’s not my-”</p><p>A loud hiss interrupted Sora as a nobody came out of nowhere and latched itself onto Axel’s back, who proceeded to calmly grab the creature’s head, throw it to the ground, and cut off it’s head with a weird circular sword.</p><p>“I guess the organization knows we’re here now.” Mickey remarked as he pulled out his keyblade.</p><p>“Yep, they’re probably sending out a welcome party as we speak.” Axel flatly replied. “To be honest, I liked these things a lot better when they were on my side.”</p><p>Several more hisses began to echo through the room followed by a stampede of footsteps, causing the rest of the group to pull out their own arms. This was going to be one heck of a fight.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**************************</p>
</div><p>Goofy rammed straight through the doors, shield first, practically knocking them off their hinges as the rest of the party frantically sprinted through the entryway with a horde of heartless and nobodies practically nipping at their heels.</p><p>As he brought up the rear, Donald spun around and threw out a massive frost spell, immediately causing a wall of ice to sprout up from the floor, blocking off the doorway from the pursuing creatures.</p><p>“There, that oughta hold em’.” Donald remarked as he tried to catch his breath.</p><p>It had been a near non-stop fight all the way inside, just wave after wave of nobodies and heartless continuously swarming them every step of the way; even with two keyblade wielders on their side, the group struggled to beat back the hordes and oftentimes had to flee rather than fight.</p><p>Normally they’d have no problem dealing with such massive swarms of the creates, wiping out an entire army of heartless back in Hollow Bastion and taking out dozens upon dozens of nobodies throughout their journeys more than proved that. Unfortunately these weren’t regular heartless or nobodies, the castle’s close proximity to the darkness made the heartless here much stronger and far more aggressive than the ones they had normally encountered on their travels and it seems as though that organization thirteen picked their absolute strongest nobodies to patrol the halls of the castle and destroy any intruders such as themselves; true they were all still stronger than the individual creatures, but when several dozen are swarming them from all sides it quickly became a serious problem.</p><p>At least they finally had a moment to take a breather….or so they thought.</p><p>“Hello Axel.”</p><p>The redheaded nobody snapped to attention at the sound of the new voice, an expression similar to a teenager who had been caught sneaking out at night coming across his face as he turned towards the individual along with the rest of the room.</p><p>Standing on top of a ledge, high above them all, was yet another organization thirteen member. Unlike all the others however, this one actually looked familiar; call Donald crazy but this nobody was practically a dead ringer for Ansem, seeker of darkness. Both of them had the same skin tone, same eyes, same facial structure, and same hair color; the only difference in appearance that Donald could see was his clothes and his hair style, but outside of that they were practically identical.</p><p>Then Donald remembered that everytime someone lost their heart, a nobody and a heartless were created.</p><p>‘Wait, was Ansem his heartless?’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>“I’m glad you took the liberty of escorting our guests inside, even if it was without my permission or knowledge.” The tanned man said.</p><p>Axel sheepishly smiled. “Heh, you know me, always the hospitable type.”</p><p>“Yes, as for you Sora.” He continued, turning to the boy in question. “You’ve done quite well.”</p><p>“Who are you? Where’s Kairi?” Sora demanded.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners? My name is Xemnas, leader of organization thirteen.” said Xemnas. “As for Kairi...I’m afraid I don’t know, she escaped our clutches with help from her friend from the darkness.”</p><p>“You expect me to believe that?” Sora shot back.</p><p>“Well, you don’t have to. But you can believe this: organization thirteen has no further use for you or your pathetic friends.”</p><p>“Hey!” Donald, Mickey, and Goofy protested.</p><p>“Just look there.” Xemnas said as he ignored the comment and motioned to one of the massive windows in the room.</p><p>It was at that moment that Donald and the others finally noticed the giant yellow heart outside, hanging in the dark sky like an oddly shaped moon. What was more concerning was that Donald could sense a magical presence coming from the massive heart, it was faint but it was clearly immense.</p><p>“Thanks to you, we’ve gathered thousands of hearts. Can you hear their euphoria?” Said Xemnas. “Now all they need is-”</p><p>The man stopped mid sentence to raise a hand and effortlessly catch one of Axel’s swords that had been tossed at him like a frisbee.</p><p>“Well now that was just rude.” The white haired nobody said.</p><p>Axel tried to get out another witty remark, but he never got the chance as Xemnas rushed over to him with an almost unbelievable speed and plunged an energy sword straight through the poor guy’s chest; the nobody letting out a gurgle of pain.</p><p>“There’s no room for traitors in organization thirteen Axel.”</p><p>Axel weakly chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at Sora. “looks like my road ends here kid. Tell Kairi I’m sorry for kidnapping her and if you see Roxas….tell him I’ll see him again sometime.”</p><p>Xemnas pulled his blades free from Axel’s chest, the redhead collapsing to the ground shortly after and dissipating into a cloud of shadow.</p><p>“Now that he’s been dealt with.” Muttered Xemnas as he turned towards the remaining heroes. “Time to take care of the rest of you.”</p><p>Mickey reacted first, charging straight at the organization’s leader with his keyblade drawn, followed by Goofy who had his shield poised to ram into their foe.</p><p>Xemnas was faster though, opening up a dark portal directly in front of the keyblade wielder. Mickey tried to skid to a stop and would have been successful if Goofy hadn’t wound up ramming into him at full speed and knocking both of them into the portal, the duo disappearing into the darkness.</p><p>“Mickey!” Donald shouted.</p><p>“Goofy!” Sora screamed.</p><p>Unfortunately, neither one of them got the chance to retaliate on behalf of their friends as a second dark portal opened up beneath Donald and Sora’s feet which they promptly plummeted through.</p><p>The journey was fast, faster than anything Donald had experienced, the duck merely blinked and found himself being spat back out of the other side of the portal with Sora landing right on top of him shortly after.</p><p>“Get off me!” Donald yelled as he pushed the human teen off of him and got back on his feet, dusting himself off.</p><p>That went about as poorly as it could have, they didn’t even get within spitting distance of the guy before he just tossed them out of the room like they were nothing more than a minor nuisance; the fact that he disposed of them so easily was almost insulting and it made the mage all the more determined to bring down organization thirteen.</p><p>“Hey, where’s Mickey and Goofy?” Asked Sora.</p><p>Donald’s head shot up and started scanning his surroundings to find that Sora was right, Mickey and Goofy were nowhere to be found. True they were still in The Castle that Never was, but with his friends missing in action that served to be little comfort.</p><p>But Donald kept his cool, panicking would only make the situation worse. Either Xemnas still needed them for something or he didn’t have the power to simply teleport them outside of the castle, in either case the duck could only assume that Mickey and Goofy were simply somewhere else in the castle; finding them couldn’t be too hard.</p><p>“Well we’re still in the castle, he must have separated us to try and make it easier to take us all down. We just have to keep moving and keep fighting, we’ll have to run into them eventually.” Donald stated.</p><p>Sora seemed to agree and picked himself up off the ground, only for another organization thirteen member whose face was concealed by the black coat that the nobodies seemed to adore to appear from the shadows and place a hand on the keyblade weilder’s shoulder.</p><p>Sora barely had any time to look behind him before both him and the nobody disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, which left Donald stuck in an unknown part of the castle...COMPLETELY ALONE.</p><p>Yep, now would probably be a good time to start panicking.</p><p>Donald took in a few more deep breaths to calm himself. ‘No, no. You can’t freak out now, you’re Donald Duck; you fended off an alien invasion, stopped an evil organization, defeated an evil sorcerer, and already saved this world once. You can handle yourself, you have to keep going.’</p><p>“Aw. I was hoping the rest of the crew would be here.” a new voice moaned. “Instead I’m stuck with the leftovers.”</p><p>The mage’s head whipped around, trying to find the source of the voice, until his eyes finally landed on yet another organization thirteen member who had casually strolled into the chamber, decked out in the same black coat that the rest of organization thirteen wore and sporting a sinister looking eyepatch upon his grinning face.</p><p>Donald didn’t know who he was and honestly he didn’t care, the guy had clearly come for a fight and Donald was happy to indulge him.</p><p>The nobody opened his mouth for another witty retort only for Donald to immediately interrupt him.</p><p>“Whatever you’re gonna say, save it. I came here to bring down organization thirteen and that’s what I’m gonna do! So let’s just get this over with.”</p><p>The nobody let out a loud cackle. “Oh man, that is just perfect. Such confidence, such viciousness, it’s a shame it has to come from the weakest link.”</p><p>“W-weakest link?” the duck growled, eye twitching.</p><p>“Come on, everyone knows that out of you four you’re the weakest one; sure you’ve got a few magic tricks here and there, but without your little light shows you aren’t even half the hero the others are.”</p><p>“Oh that is it.” the mage scowled. “I’ll show you who the weakest link is!”</p><p>Donald immediately fired a lightning spell at the one-eyed man, only for him to vanish and reappear behind the duck. He was barely able to duck under the volley of energy bolts fired at him before ducking and rolling to face the nobody once more.</p><p>“Huh. Good reflexes.” the nobody said. “Won’t save you of course, but it is worth noting.”</p><p>What followed next was essentially a magic based shootout, Donald utilizing his spells while his opponent wielded two odd looking weapons that could best be described as rapid-fire, energy crossbows. Unfortunately, Donald was put at a pretty severe disadvantage: the nobody he was facing could fly and teleport around the room making it difficult for him to keep track of the guy, much less land a hit on him; not to mention the fact that the nobody could fire far more projectiles far faster than the mage could; couple that with a complete and total lack of cover in the room and Donald was essentially forced to let his opponent set the pacing of the fight.</p><p>But it wasn’t completely hopeless, Donald’s quick reflexes he had developed from years of being an adventurer allowed him to dance around the guy’s shots with relative ease and while there wasn’t any cover in the room, it didn’t stop Donald from building his own with a few frost spells; this wound up trapping the two in a strange stalemate where neither one of them could land a shot on the other, both constantly running around the room and firing wildly in an attempt to take the other down.</p><p>Then Donald started to notice a pattern in the nobody’s attacks: whenever he teleported, he always came at the duck from behind. Utilizing that knowledge, Donald waited until the organization member teleported again, spun around, and preemptively cast a fire bolt.</p><p>“Argh!” The nobody screamed as the flames nailed him dead center, knocking him to the ground.</p><p>“Gotcha!” Donald exclaimed, seizing the opportunity to rush over and whack the guy across the face with his staff and send the poor nobody flying.</p><p>The organization thirteen member pushed himself off the ground with a growl. “Okay enough, screw this.”</p><p>He teleported once more and Donald thought he was ready for him, throwing out another preemptive strike only to hit nothing but air.</p><p>Donald’s eyes rapidly searched the room for any trace of his opponent; but he had seemingly vanished, having fled the fight entirely.</p><p>The mage was about to congratulate himself for a job well done, only for several energy bolts to come out of nowhere and strike him square in the chest; poor Donald went flying back as he hissed in pain from the stinging sensation that had spread across his chest, skidding across the floor several feet before coming to a complete stop.</p><p>As he lied there, completely dazed from the blow, he could spot the nobody hopping down from a perch near the roof of the chamber out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>‘So that’s where he went.’ Donald grimly noted.</p><p>The nobody clicked his tongue as he approached the fallen duck. “You should have sent that mouse friend of yours, at least he might have stood a better chance. Oh well, let’s ‘get this over with’ as you coined it.”</p><p>He raised his weapon and prepared to land a killing blow, Donald clenching his eyes shut and praying that it would be over quickly.</p><p>He heard the swing of metal and then...nothing, no pain, no sudden darkness, nothing at all; at least until the sound of two metal objects hitting the floor rang throughout the room.</p><p>Donald cracked open his eyes and, to his complete and utter surprise, a large blade had been thrust through the nobody’s chest; the man wearing a complete look of surprise at the sight.</p><p>The blade quickly receded itself from the organization’s member chest who faded away much in the same way that Axel did. Unfortunately for Donald, the hand holding the sword was most definitely not attached to a friendly face. He could hardly believe it at first, but there was no doubt that he was staring at his old foe: Ansem, seeker of darkness.</p><p>His adrenalin spiking, Donald quickly scrambled backwards to put as much distance between him and Ansem as he could only to bump into a second pair of legs.</p><p>The mage quickly looked up and calmed when he saw Kairi’s face staring back at him, only to immediately panic again when he realized that she was in the same room as the guy who had nearly ripped out her heart.</p><p>“Kairi, quick! Get behind me!” Donald shouted, hopping to his feet. “I’ll protect you from Ansem!”</p><p>“No, wait Donald. It’s okay! It’s just Riku!” the girl exclaimed</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “Kairi, I know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. But last time I checked, Riku didn’t look anything like that.”</p><p>“No, she’s right it is me.” Ansem said, Riku’s voice coming out of his mouth. “After I defeated Ansem for control of my heart and left Mickey, I became aware of organization thirteen’s plans and knew I had to stop them; but I couldn’t stop them without the power of the darkness and the only way to properly utilize it, was to become Ansem.”</p><p>“So, you can’t change back?” Donald asked.</p><p>“No, I can. But this conflict isn’t over and until it is, I still need the power of darkness.” Riku/Ansem replied. “By the way, where’s Sora? He was with you guys when you came in.”</p><p>“He got kidnapped by-”</p><p>A portal opening up to the side interrupted Donald and drew the attention of everyone in the room, all of them getting ready for whatever horror was about to spill forth from the darkness; instead a familiar brunette keyblade wielder came tumbling out.</p><p>Kairi gasped at the sight and quickly rushed over to her friend, pulling the boy off of the floor and into a big hug.</p><p>Sora remained limp in the embrace for a few moments, until he blinked a few times as if his brain was doing a bit of a reboot and he realized who exactly was embracing him.</p><p>“K-kairi.” the keyblade wielder stuttered out as he wrapped his arms around the girl and pressed his face into her shoulder</p><p>Donald wanted to join in on the hug, he really did, but those two kids hadn’t seen each other for more than a year; they needed this moment.</p><p>After a good five minutes of hugging, Sora looked up with a smile that quickly disappeared when he saw Riku/Ansem standing only a few yards away; he reacted exactly how Donald expected him to.</p><p>“ANSEM!” Sora shouted as he drew his keyblade and readied himself to charge</p><p>“What’s the matter Sora?” Riku/Ansem said, causing Sora to stop dead in his tracks. “Aren’t you happy to see your friend?”</p><p>The boy’s mouth flew open in bewilderment. “wait...Riku? Is that you?”</p><p>“In the flesh, at least as much of my own as I can be.”</p><p>“What? But...I don’t...why are you-”</p><p>“Hey, can we talk about this later? I love a reunion as much as the next guy but we’ve gotta take down organization thirteen, remember?” Donald interjected.</p><p>“He’s right.” Kairi said with a nod. “I waited a year to see you guys again, I can wait a little- LOOK OUT!”</p><p>The redhead rushed forward and shoved Donald aside as a heartless lept towards him, the girl suddenly pulling out a keyblade of her own and slicing through the shadowy monster.</p><p>By that point, Sora’s jaw had nearly hit the floor. “A keyblade?! Where did you get a keyblade?”</p><p>“It’s a long story, Sora, one that’ll have to wait. The important thing is that now you won’t have to protect me anymore, I can look after myself.”</p><p>“but-”</p><p>“She’s right, I’ve seen her use it and I know that Kairi can hold her own in a fight.” Riku/Ansem said.</p><p>Sora opened his mouth again to protest only to snap it shut moments later as he seemingly relented.</p><p>“Fine but if you get hurt-”</p><p>“She won’t.” Donald reassured his friend. “After all, she’ll have the best keyblade wielder and the strongest mage in all the worlds watching her back.”</p><p>Sora shot Donald a determined smile, the boy seemingly having been reinvigorated from his hesitance.</p><p>“Now that’s all said and done, look sharp! We’ve got a welcoming party.” Said Riku/Ansem.</p><p>Donald and Sora look over to see that a crowd of heartless and nobodies had started making their way into the room, the creatures making a beeline straight for them. The duo gave each other a nod and charged towards the crowd with Kairi and Riku/Ansem by their sides, they could already feel the tide of this battle turning in their favor once more.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**************************</p>
</div><p>Donald groaned. “If I ever have to see another playing card in my life, it’ll be too soon.”</p><p>“Tell me about it.” Riku/Ansem said.</p><p>After Riku and Kairi joined in on the battle, the whole situation escalated very quickly; it truly felt like Xemnas was throwing everything he had left at them just to try and stop them. From his army of nobodies to the heartless from the realm of darkness to the remaining organization thirteen members, the leader of the nobodies truly was pulling out all the stops for what may very well be his last stand. One of which did a really weird series of attacks that involved turning them all into playing cards and dice, an experience the mage would much rather not have to relive.</p><p>Donald had thought that their initial run in had been a slog, but what they were facing now made that seem like a walk in the park; but they were strong, they could take it all and then some.</p><p>It certainly helped having three keyblade wielders by his side who were more than capable of hacking and slashing their way through the hordes, especially in Sora’s case.</p><p>The presence of Riku and Kairi had seemed to completely re-energize the kid, allowing him to fight with a courage and ferocity that he had never seen before and Donald could hardly blame him. Sora had been searching for his friends almost as long as Donald and Goofy had been for Mickey, finally being reunited with them probably gave him the same feeling they had upon being reunited with the mouse for the first time.</p><p>Speaking of which, despite having worked their way up to the rooftop of the castle that never was, Donald still hadn’t found any trace of Mickey or Goofy anywhere; he kept telling himself that they could look after themselves but with all the chaos engulfing the castle, he started to doubt that more and more.</p><p>Then again, between him, Sora, Riku, and Kairi they were no doubt the bigger threat and had probably been drawing away the majority of Xemnas’ forces-</p><p>
  <b>BOOM!</b>
</p><p>A loud explosion broke Donald out of his thoughts and caused the very foundations of the castle itself to shake, a massive wave of light flowing forth from the source of blast and engulfing the entire castle.</p><p>To his credit, Riku immediately threw himself in front of everyone to shield them from the eruption; but it proved to be unnecessary as instead of fiery pain, a comforting warmth washed over all of them that disappeared after a few moments.</p><p>“What the heck was that?” Donald exclaimed.</p><p>“Ansem the wise.” Said Mickey.</p><p>Donald’s head snapped to the side to see his rodent friend standing right next to Goofy a short distance away from them, relieved smiles adorning their faces as they jogged over to the mage and gave him another three way hug.</p><p>“Nice to see yer still in one piece Don.” Said Goofy.</p><p>“Right back at ya Goofy.” Donald replied. “But what do you mean, ‘Ansem the Wise’?”</p><p>As the trio broke free from their hug, Mickey spoke up. “I mean Ansem the Wise is- or rather he was here. After we got teleported away, we ran into him and helped him set up a machine that was supposed to digitize kingdom hearts and prevent Xemnas from using it.”</p><p>“I’m guessing that didn’t work too well.”</p><p>Goofy shook his head. “‘Fraid not, once all that light cleared up, him and the machine were both gone. Oh and we also ran into Magica and Maleficent.”</p><p>Donald froze. “What?”</p><p>“Yeah, apparently those two had big plans for taking over this castle.”</p><p>“Where are they now?” Asked Sora as he approached the trio.</p><p>“Last time we saw them, they were trying to fight off all the heartless and nobodies that were swarming the place.” Mickey explained. “‘Clearing house’ they called it.”</p><p>“And you didn’t stop them?”</p><p>The mouse crossed his arms. “If those two want to rush towards certain death, who am I to stop them?”</p><p>Donald shrugged, Mickey had him there.</p><p>“So, what do we do now?” Asked Kairi.</p><p>“We keep fighting.” said Riku, now returned to his original form. “I’m assuming you two already took out a few more organization members on your way in?”</p><p>Mickey and Goofy nodded in response.</p><p>“Great, then that means Xemnas is the only one left. We beat him and organization thirteen will be as good as gone.”</p><p>“And with six against one, there’s no way we can lose!” Goofy cheered.</p><p>“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Donald added as he pulled out his staff.</p><p>“Right ho, oh and Riku?” Said Mickey. “It’s nice to see you again too.”</p><p>The group rushed up the stairs, cutting down the few remaining stragglers that got in their way until they reached the very top of the castle that never was where Xemnas was waiting for them all in front of his kingdom hearts; which was now sporting a massive gaping hole, no doubt a result of the explosion that occurred moments ago.</p><p>“My kingdom hearts, ruined.” Xemnas said with despair. “Now I’ll have to start all over again….”</p><p>“You’re not gonna get the chance Xemnas, this ends right here, right now!” Mickey shouted, drawing his keyblade.</p><p>“Tell me warriors of the light, why do you hate the darkness?”</p><p>“We don’t hate the darkness, it’s just kinda...scary.” Mickey continued. “But ever since I arrived in this universe, I’ve learned that the world’s made of light and darkness; you can’t have one without the other, ‘cause darkness is half of everything...it kinda makes you wonder why we’re scared of it at all.”</p><p>“It’s because who’s lurking inside of it.” Riku said.</p><p>“Then allow me another question.” Said Xemnas. “You accept darkness, yet choose to live in the light. So why is it that you loathe those who teeter on the edge of nothing? We, who were turned away by both light and dark, never given a choice?”</p><p>“That’s easy, you mess up our worlds.”</p><p>“Be that as it may, what other choice might we have had?”</p><p>“Asking for help, trying to find a peaceful solution that wouldn’t result in the destruction of our homes. We would have helped you find a heart if you asked.” Donald stated. “Everyone has a choice Xemnas, it’s not our fault you made the wrong one.”</p><p>“But then again what do you know? You’re a nobody, you don’t even exist.” Sora tacked on.</p><p>Xemnas chuckled. “Very observant. No matter what misery befalls the worlds, no matter what you think, or how you exist, I cannot feel anything. But perhaps...this will make me feel something.”</p><p>The nobody suddenly took off into the sky like a rocket, coming to a stop just as quickly in front of his now broken kingdom hearts.</p><p>“Hear me kingdom hearts! We must begin anew! But know this, I will give you as many hearts as it takes, you can no more be complete without me than I without you! Heed me kingdom hearts, lend me your power so that we may be complete, the power to erase the fools that hinder us; hearts quivering with hatred, hearts burning with rage, hearts scared by envy! That fool Ansem the wise said hearts were beyond his understanding, but it’s not beyond mine! Hearts are the source of all power!”</p><p>With his final words, a massive light engulfed Xemnas and blinded the heroes as the last remaining vestiges of power within the kingdom heart flowed into the nobody. Once it finally cleared away, Xemnas landed back on the platform with a loud slam and caused a shockwave to fly forth that nearly knocked the group off of their feet.</p><p>Gone was the black jacket that had served as organization thirteen’s trademark, in it’s place stood a massive suit of ivory colored armor with the symbol of the nobodies engraved onto it’s chest, a massive sword clutched in his hand; it didn’t take a genius to see that Xemnas had gotten a serious power up from all the energy he had absorbed.</p><p>“Your hearts have led you to obliteration. Perhaps it doesn’t pay to be loyal to one’s heart.” Xemnas boomed. “I will have to remember that.”</p><p>The armored nobody charged at the group, causing them to scatter to avoid the attack. Donald reflexively cast out a frost spell to try and immobilize the warrior and the fight had begun.</p><p>It quickly became apparent that while Xemnas has gained far more raw power then before, the dents in the floor he created with every swing proved that much, he had sacrificed most of his speed to get it and was left as little more than a lumbering brute; something that left him at a severe disadvantage in a six versus one situation where all the fighters were much faster and more agile than he was. Unfortunately while they could dodge Xemnas’ attacks all day, getting past his armor was a different story; it seemed that no matter what spells Donald cast, no matter how hard Goofy slammed into him, no matter how many times the keyblade wielders tried to cut through the armor, he just continued to persevere. The only thing that seemed to affect him were frost spells and that only slowed him down further for a short time.</p><p>The whole fight felt like they were just throwing ping pong balls at a battleship. At least until Donald remembered something important regarding how metals and cold interact: the latter causes the former to become brittle and weak with extended exposure. It may have been a long shot, but he had to try.</p><p>“Mickey!” Donald shouted.</p><p>The mouse’s head snapped towards him as he dodged another one of Xemnas’ blows. “What?!”</p><p>“On my mark, I need you to slash at Xemnas’ left arm as hard as you can!”</p><p>“Donald that hasn’t-”</p><p>“Just do it!” The duck snapped before casting out a ray of frost onto the nobody’s arm and keeping it on target as much as he could.</p><p>Once the limb had gathered a decent amount of frost, Donald shouted. “NOW, HIT HIM!”</p><p>Mickey leapt forward before Xemnas could react and brought his keyblade down onto the frozen arm, the nobody crying out in pain as several cracks formed on his armor; they were small but it was the most progress they’d ever made.</p><p>Donald grinned, they had found his weakness.</p><p>The mage started laying down a series of concentrated frost spells aimed less at doing damage and more about lowering the temperature of Xemnas’ armor as much as he possibly could, meanwhile the rest of his companions rushed in and landed a few hits that slowly chipped away at his armor; he couldn’t believe it, this might work!</p><p>Unfortunately Xemnas seemed to realize what they were doing and immediately started to pursue Donald. The leader of the nobodies brought his blade down towards the duck who easily dodged to the side, only to collide with Xemnas’ outstretched arm that proceeded to grab the duck by the throat and hoist him off the ground.</p><p>“You insolent little avain!” Xemnas shouted as he squeezed down onto Donald’s windpipe.</p><p>Donald tried to get another spell out, but the sensation of his windpipe slowly being crushed made it nearly impossible for him to get so much as a spark out; the duck started slamming his hands against the armor in a futile attempt to get the nobody to release him, but it was no use, he was too strong.</p><p>Donald’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head, the edges of his vision starting to darken as the last reserves of oxygen were squeezed from his lungs.</p><p>Then all at once, Xemnas let out another howl of pain and released Donald, the mage falling onto his tail feathers as he took greedy breaths of air to refill his oxygen deprived brain.</p><p>“Donald, ya okay?!” Goofy shouted, rushing over to his bestie.</p><p>“I’m fine.” Donald hacked. “What happened?”</p><p>Goofy motioned to the side with his thumb and Donald followed it to see that Kairi of all people was currently in the process of freezing Xemnas’ back.</p><p>“You leave my friends alone!” The redhead exclaimed.</p><p>Donald blinked in surprise. “Kairi can cast spells with her keyblade?!”</p><p>“I guess so.” Goofy shrugged. “But you won’t hear me complaining, now c’mon, on yer feet!”</p><p>Goofy yanked Donald back into a standing position and picked up where they left off. With two magic users turning his armor into a glacier, Xemnas started losing ground fast as more and more pieces of his armor were broken off by Sora, Riku, Mickey, and Goofy.</p><p>Xemnas took a knee, trying to regain his strength, when Mickey rushed in and landed the final blow by stabbing the nobody straight through the chest with his keyblade, shadows spilling forth from the wound as the last of Xemnas’ armor fell away and left the nobody back in his original form.</p><p>“N-no...it can’t end like this…” Xemnas hacked. “I need...more rage...I need...more hearts…”</p><p>Sora frowned. “Xemnas, there’s more to a heart than just anger or hate. It’s full of all kinds of feelings, don’t you remember?”</p><p>Xemnas returned Sora’s frown with one of his own. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”</p><p>On that note, the last remaining member of organization thirteen melted away in a flurry of shadows just as his fellow nobodies had and left the heroes of light victorious.</p><p>The group soon started celebrating.</p><p>“Yeah! We did it!” Kairi said.</p><p>“You fellas were great!” Mickey chimed. “Great idea using those cold spells to soften up his armor Donald!”</p><p>“Aww it was nothing, Kairi was the one to save me when Xemnas started strangling me. Speaking of.” Donald turned towards the girl in question. “How did you do that?”</p><p>“I actually don’t know, I just saw him hurting you and I felt this surge of energy flow through-”</p><p>The platform they were on suddenly started to quake, the sound of crumbling stone and screeching metal cut through the air as the ground they stood upon started to destabilize.</p><p>“Uh fellas, I think that’s our cue to get outta here!” Said Goofy.</p><p>“How? There’s no way we can get back to the streets before this whole place collapses!” Donald shouted.</p><p>They were about to start spitballing ideas, when a dark portal suddenly appeared out of thin air.</p><p>“What the- Mickey did you do that?” Goofy asked.</p><p>Mickey shook his head. “No way, Riku?”</p><p>“Don’t look at me.”</p><p>“Who cares who opened it? That’s our ticket outta here!” Said Donald.</p><p>“But we don’t know where it goes!” Said Sora.</p><p>“Would you rather stay here in a crumbling castle?”</p><p>Sora snapped his mouth shut. “Good point.”</p><p>“Exactly, now C’mon!”</p><p>Donald rushed forth and hopped straight through the portal, Mickey and Goofy following closely behind. When he came out the other end, Donald’s senses were immediately assaulted with the smell of sea water and the feeling of sand between his toes, taking a quick glance around at his surroundings he couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the gleaming beach around him; next to the ocean, the beach was his favorite place to be. The fact that they had been transported to Sora’s home world, Destiny Islands, which had thankfully been reformed after Ansem tore through it was just a nice bonus.</p><p>“Well, this ain’t so bad, kinda nice actually.” Goofy remarked.</p><p>“After what we just went through, a day at the beach sounds perfect.” Mickey agreed. “What do you think Sora? Sora?”</p><p>It was at that moment that the trio realized their human friends hadn’t come through the portal yet, causing them to glance at one another nervously.</p><p>“Do...do ya think they’re alright?” Asked Goofy.</p><p>“Maybe we should go back and-”</p><p>Donald was once again interrupted when Kairi tumbled out of the portal with a yelp, falling face first into the sand as the dark passageway closed behind her.</p><p>The duck quickly ran over and helped the girl back onto her feet. “Kairi? Where’s Riku and Sora?”</p><p>“It- It was Xemnas!” Kairi stuttered out.</p><p>“What?!”</p><p>“He wasn’t gone! He showed up out of nowhere, grabbed Riku and Sora, and knocked me through the portal!” the girl sputtered.</p><p>“So those two are facing Xemnas by themselves?! We have to go after them!” Mickey said.</p><p>“How?! The portal back just closed up and we don’t have my gummi ship, even if we did we’d never get there in time!” Goofy cried out.</p><p>“We gotta do something! We can’t just leave them with that monster!”</p><p>“We don’t have a choice.” Donald huffed as he took a seat in the sand. “We don’t have a way to get back to the world that never was or any other world for that matter, all we can do now is wait until Riku and Sora beat Xemnas and find a way here.”</p><p>“How do you know they’ll be able to?”</p><p>“They will! I know they will, Sora always finds a way.” Donald hissed.</p><p>“He’s got a point Mick, Sora’s the toughest kid I know and if all that stuff he said about his friend Riku is true, he’s got some serious backup. He’ll make it, we just gotta be patient.”</p><p>Goofy took a seat next to Donald and gazed out at the expansive ocean that sat before them, Mickey let out a sigh and sat down on the other side of the duck doing the same thing his canine friend was.</p><p>Kairi on the other hand decided to be a bit more proactive, running off for a bit before returning with a message in a bottle that she promptly hurled into the surf and watched it drift off into the distance.</p><p>Donald raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”</p><p>“A message, for a friend.” Kairi stated as she took a seat next to them. “I hope he gets it, wherever he is.”</p><p>Donald nodded and refocused his gaze back towards the horizon.</p><p>it wouldn’t do them any good to worry now, they could only have faith that their friends would be able to win the day. Until then, they were content to simply sit on the sand and enjoy a moment of peace after spending so long fighting for their lives.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>**************************</p>
</div><p>“The sunset is beautiful isn’t it?” Donald said.</p><p>Kairi hummed in reply, her head resting against the duck’s shoulder.</p><p>Hours upon hours had passed, the day slowly slipping away, and there was still no sign of Sora or Riku which was starting to discourage the others.</p><p>Mickey and Goofy had left about an hour ago, having finally lost their patience and decided to start searching the island for anything that might help them find their missing friends or at least transport them to another world so they could start their search right, leaving Kairi and Donald on the beach where they continued to wait for their friends.</p><p>The duo found an odd comfort in one another, purely in a platonic sense of course, despite having very little interactions with each other; Sora did have a way of bringing people together after all, it was only one of the many reasons that he grew to care about the boy. Which made it all the more heart wrenching to have to wait so long to see him again, not knowing if they’re safe or not.</p><p>“Ya know, Sora used to gush about you.” Donald muttered</p><p>Kairi turned her head to look at Donald. “Really?”</p><p>“Yeah, you and Riku both. He really does care about you two, more than anything else in the world. Kinda like how Mickey, Goofy, and I are.”</p><p>“You all do seem really close.”</p><p>“They’re my best friends in the whole world, we’ve been through a lot together even before we got here.” Donald replied. “I’d do anything for them.”</p><p>“How did you get here anyways? You keep mentioning you don’t come from any of these worlds.”</p><p>Donald sighed. “It was just supposed to be a simple get together between me and them, spend the weekend together playing some games, having a few laughs. Then we stumbled upon Mickey’s keyblade and the next thing I know, we’re flung into this whole conflict that I don’t even entirely understand. I miss my home, things were simple back there...well, simpler than they are now.”</p><p>“We really do have a lot in common.” Kairi said.</p><p>Donald gave a solemn nod before refocusing his gaze back towards the waves, only to pause when he saw something particular. The duck squinted out at the water, for a second he could have sworn that-</p><p>A pair of heads suddenly burst forth from the waves, bobbing above the water like a pair of buoys. It took him a second or two, but Donald soon recognized the familiar head of spiky hair attached to one of the aforementioned heads.</p><p>Kairi gasped. “SORA! RIKU!”</p><p>The two heads swung around and, upon sighting their friends standing on the shore, dove beneath the waves and started swimming back towards the shore.</p><p>Donald hopped up from his spot on the shore and ran into the water, meeting Sora halfway and tackling him into the water with a massive hug.</p><p>“I knew it! I knew you’d come back some time!” Donald exclaimed.</p><p>“SORA!” Goofy’s voice sounded off.</p><p>“RIKU!” Mickey shouted.</p><p>Donald felt the dog’s body collide into his and Sora’s while Mickey ran past the three of them to give his friend Riku a hug, everyone snuggling with each other, just happy to see their friends safe and sound.</p><p>Goofy looked over towards Kairi. “Well come on, ain’t ya gonna welcome Sora back?”</p><p>The redhead smiled and made her way into the shallow water, joining in on the group hugs that the others were sharing.</p><p>“What took you guys so long?” asked Mickey. “We’ve been waiting for you two all day.”</p><p>Riku ran a hand through his hair. “It’s kind of a crazy story, I’d love to fill you in but I really could use a nap right about now.”</p><p>“I’m afraid that you won’t be able to rest just yet, young Riku.” Said an authoritative voice.</p><p>The six of them looked back over towards the beach to see master Yen Sid standing their with his arms crossed behind his back, face in a neutral expression.</p><p>“Yen Sid? What are you doing here?” Goofy questioned.</p><p>“I’ve come to inform you of the coming conflict.” the ancient wizard replied.</p><p>“Conflict? What conflict?” Said Riku. “Ansem’s gone and so is Xemnas. We’re done, it’s over.”</p><p>“Not quite, you see both Ansem and Xemnas were actually the heartless and the nobody of a far greater threat: master Xehanort. A powerful keyblade wielder with a lust for power that caused him to give his heart into the darkness, splitting his form into the two foes that you’ve previously fought.”</p><p>“But we destroyed them both, why would that be a problem?” Said Sora.</p><p>Yen Sid frowned. “True, but do you know what happens when an individual’s heartless and nobody is destroyed?”</p><p>Donald’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “Their original form is restored…”</p><p>A wave of dread suddenly fell over the group, if Ansem was a heartless and Xemnas was a nobody then they could only imagine how powerful Xehanort must be.</p><p>“So, what do we do? What can we do?” Asked Mickey.</p><p>“Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell when or where Xehanort will appear when he finally does reform, I have no doubt he will try to claim the power of kingdom hearts just as his heartless and nobody attempted to but it’s unclear how he will attempt to accomplish this task.” Yen Sid explained. “The only thing we can do is prepare, Xehanort is far more powerful than any foe you’ve faced in the past and you’ll have to be at your absolute peak of your abilities in order to properly deal with whatever trials he shall put you through.”</p><p>The wizard waved his hand and opened up a portal of light, an image of his tower appearing on the other end. “You must come with me to train, I can help you reach your zenith’s and prepare you for the keyblade war. I know you may be hesitant, especially after all you’ve had to endure but I beg of you, the fate of the worlds could hang in the balance.”</p><p>Sora looked down and sighed. “What do you say guys? Up for one more adventure?”</p><p>“We’ve come this far.” Said Donald. “No reason to stop now, right?”</p><p>Goofy and Mickey nodded in agreement with the latter saying. “Might as well finish what we started.”</p><p>“If Sora’s going, then I’m coming too.” Said Riku as he threw an arm around his friend’s shoulders.</p><p>“So am I. I waited too long to see them again, I’m not going to say goodbye now.” Kairi added.</p><p>“Excellent.” Yen Sid said with a smile. “Your training begins tomorrow. Tonight you may take a long deserved rest, while you may have given rise to a greater threat you still managed to protect kingdom hearts once again and for that I am grateful.”</p><p>As Yen Sid led the group through the portal, straight into their destiny, Donald thought to himself:</p><p>‘It’s always another adventure, isn’t it?’</p><p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>The plane suddenly dipping forwards and coming to a slamming stop that nearly flung the kids into the wall let them know that Launchpad had successfully ‘landed’ the plane and their reading session would have to come to an end.</p><p>“Well that was cool, as always.” Dewey said. “Seriously, how many times did uncle Donald save the world on his own?”</p><p>“At this point, it’s probably been at least a dozen times.” Louie replied.</p><p>“There’s still a lot of pages left here; he probably saved the world a couple more times. I'm more interested in this Xehanort guy, from what we've read he seems to be the biggest threat uncle Donald's ever faced." Huey said.</p><p>“I’ll have to pin him on the rest of my Donald Duck board later, now come on; let’s see where we crashed this time.” Webby stated.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and thus kingdom hearts 2 comes to a close with the defeat of the nobodies. Kingdom hearts 3 is up next and it's gonna be the longest of the kingdom hearts sub arcs, there's gonna be a lot of drama and action to cover there.</p><p>Some of the highlights I've got planned:<br/>- Donald doing the Zettaflare spell!<br/>- Magica De Spell becoming a major player in the keyblade war!<br/>- Kairi actually doing stuff and being useful!<br/>- and many more awesome moments!</p><p>I'll get started on it as soon as I can, until then I'll see you all later.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Kingdom Hearts 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>The entire room jumped when Dewey literally kicked open the door to the triplet’s shared bedroom.</p><p>“GUYS! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!!!” The middle triplet shouted.</p><p>“Keep it down! Do you want someone to find out about our ‘meetings’?” Louie said. “And what the heck are you talking about?”</p><p>Dewey whipped out his phone and held up the screen. The device was currently displaying a report about a new film that had just been announced, complete with a movie poster, titled ‘warriors of the key.’ with the cast of canines and avians looking oddly similar to how Donald described a certain group of keyblade warriors. The most damning thing about the whole film was who would be credited for writing and directing the film: Mickey. Theodore. Mouse.</p><p>Lena frowned. “Ooh, your uncle isn’t gonna like this.”</p><p>“While it’s nice to get some kind of confirmation that all of uncle Donald’s stories are true, not that I doubted him, I’d have to agree; he’s gonna lose it when finds out what uncle Mickey is doing.” Huey said.</p><p>“Who’s playing Donald?” Asked Webby.</p><p>Dewey turned his phone back towards him. “Uh, some guy named Tony Anselmo. At least I think he is, he’s wearing wizard clothes.”</p><p>“As fascinating as that is, perhaps we should get back to the reading while we still have time to do so?” Asked Violet.</p><p>“Right, sorry.”</p>
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</div><p>Donald twirled his staff around in his hands, eyes scanning the ruins of the arena for any sight of Kairi. The girl had bested him in their previous bout with a clever little ambush tactic, but Donald wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice; he was going to give it his all and push the female keyblade wielder to her limits.</p><p>First he just had to find her…</p><p>A shadow of movement caught his attention and Donald stopped in place, she was close. Then a fiery explosion suddenly erupted only a few feet away from his position, the shockwave forcing him straight into the path of a rapidly approaching pink and red blur.</p><p>Donald jumped back as Kairi’s keyblade swung downwards, the wind coming off of the strike gently grazing his beak.</p><p>Moving backwards to put some distance between him and the girl, the mage cast out a frost spell in an attempt to stop Kairi in her tracks only for the redhead to jump straight over the patch of ice and start skating towards him with a determined glint in her eyes.</p><p>Not to be outdone, Donald summoned up an ice ramp and while Kairi tried to stop herself, she simply couldn’t get any friction and went sailing straight over it; landing on the ground in a rough tumble that she quickly recovered from, unfortunately said recovery was not quick enough to evade the lightning spell that hit her in the back and sent her flying once more.</p><p>Seizing the opportunity, the duck quickly rushed over to Kairi and attempted to wallop her with his staff only for the girl to block the blow with her keyblade, forcing her opponent to back off after a brief power struggle.</p><p>Donald cast out a fire spell to create some more breathing room, but Kairi seemed to anticipate this and cast an ice spell in retaliation which bathed the area in a blinding cloud of steam.</p><p>“Where did she- AH-HA!” the mage exclaimed before swinging at a silhouette appearing from the fog.</p><p>Unfortunately for him, said silhouette was actually just a pile of rocks that served to distract him from the fact that Kairi was actually coming at him from the opposite side quite rapidly; something he became acutely aware of when her keyblade slammed into his side, the duck gritting his teeth at the sensation of pain shooting out from the impact area.</p><p>Thinking fast, Donald fired a lightning bolt at a nearby pillar causing it to come crumbling down like a falling tree; forcing Kairi to dodge out of the way to avoid being squashed flat. With confusion in the air, Donald snuck around the rubble and ambushed the girl with a fireball that she deflected with her keyblade only to catch a webbed foot to the midsection for her troubles.</p><p>With the wind knocked out of her sails, Kairi wheezed and fell to the ground. The mage quickly planted one foot on her chest and placed the other upon her keyblade to keep her from getting any ideas.</p><p>“It’s over Kairi.” Donald panted. “Yield.”</p><p>The redhead struggled for a few more moments, trying to push the duck off of her, but her thrashing soon ceased as the last few embers of her fighting spirit fizzled away. Kairi laid her hand flat on the ground and looked up at Donald.</p><p>“Okay, I give. You got me.”</p><p>“Way to go Donald!” Goofy exclaimed from his spot in the bleachers.</p><p>Donald smiled at his friend as he released Kairi from the pin, helping the girl back to her feet shortly after.</p><p>“I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?” Asked the duck only for Kairi to shake her head.</p><p>“No more than usual Donald.” The redhead replied. “I really thought I had you back there.”</p><p>“You almost did, you’re getting really good at coming up with new tactics on the fly and your reflexes have definitely improved. I didn’t think you’d be able to dodge that path of ice.”</p><p>Kairi shrugged. “I’ve been learning from the best.”</p><p>Donald shot her a smirk in response.</p><p>“Well I think that’s enough sparring for one day, what's say we all grab a bite to eat?” Said Goofy as he approached the two.</p><p>Kairi opened her mouth to answer, only for her stomach to beat her to the punch with an audible growl.</p><p>“That sounds like a yes to me.” the dog chuckled. “Ya up for spaghetti?”</p><p>“sure!”</p><p>As Donald conjured up a portal back to Yen Sid’s keep, he couldn’t help but take the time to reflect on the time they had spent together under the wizard’s tutelage.</p><p>It was hard to believe they had spent almost four years in this dimension now, four years being away from everything and everyone they ever knew; four years of being locked into a conflict between the forces of light and darkness, a conflict they had spent the better part of the past year preparing for.</p><p>Training had been utterly grueling. It was a constant stream of studying magic, learning new combat tactics, and sparring with each other for hours on end; the only reprieve any of them received were the very brief moments of downtime the group got in between training sessions to rest and recover. All of the other physical training Donald went through in the past? From the Navy, to S.H.U.S.H., to the stuff Xandra put him through? All of it paled in comparison to the gauntlet Yen Sid subjected them to on a daily basis. Although Donald couldn’t exactly contest any of it, with how powerful master Xehanort was implied to be; they all had to be at their absolute best when the war finally started. Besides, all of the training they had been going through had made a noticeable difference in their strength and skill compared to where they were before.</p><p>At least they didn’t have to go through it alone. After defeating Xemnas back in the world that never was, their band of misfits got two new members in the form of Riku and Kairi who had spent their first two weeks of training just catching up with Sora, swapping stories about all the various adventures they had gone on; even a blind man could see that the boy was absolutely ecstatic to have his friends back.</p><p>Unfortunately Donald couldn’t say he shared the same sentiment, while he did trust Sora’s judgement and was perfectly willing to give the teen’s friends a chance, the duck had a sliver of doubt and suspicion towards Riku when they first started working together and he didn’t exactly know Kairi all that well either despite the girl making a great first impression.</p><p>Thankfully he got over it pretty quickly.</p><p>Kairi was the first one of the duo he befriended. Once she stopped clinging to Sora’s side and actually started hanging out with the rest of them, Donald found that she was actually quite the sweetheart once you got to know her. A kindhearted optimist that was friendly and charming to everyone she encountered, always maintaining an upbeat demeanor even after having to run several miles as part of Yen Sid’s training; Donald could certainly see why the girl was chosen as one of the seven princesses of the heart, she just had this light about her that could brighten even the darkest day</p><p>Of course their bond was only further strengthened by the fact that Yen Sid often had them working closely together to practice their magical abilities. For Kairi was a rather unique case amongst the keyblade wielders in that she could actually utilize magical spells. Of course all keyblade wielders could use magic, but it typically manifested in more of an aura that enhanced their physical abilities and allowed them to pull of feats of strength and speed far above that of their fellow man (which certainly explained why Mickey was able to pull off half the stuff he could.). Kairi didn’t gain access to that ability, instead her magic was more of a conduit that allowed her to draw energy from her heart and re-shape it into offensive and defensive magic; normally this would be a massive problem for any spellcaster as they would literally be burning away their life force for spells, luckily the unique nature of Kairi’s heart meant that she had a much more sizable pool of energy to work with and could only burn out with excessive use.</p><p>They nearly had a collective heart attack the first time Kairi pushed herself too hard during training and wound up in a two day coma, she learned to use magic in moderation really quick following that.</p><p>In any case, Donald served as a sort of mentor to Kairi when it came to spells; she may have been chosen as a keyblade wielder but she still had a whole lot to learn about actually using magic. Yen Sid may be the one training them all to be the greatest heroes ever, but Donald knew that he was Kairi’s main teacher and not the old man; the duck had been the one to teach Kairi almost all of the spells she knew up until this point. Although it was a little bit embarrassing that his student was able to cast healing spells while he couldn’t even with Yen Sid’s teachings, he didn’t even know where she picked it up from!</p><p>Regardless, Donald grew almost as attached to Kairi as he had to Sora. He wasn’t quite the same father figure to her as he was to the brunette, but he was pretty darn close in some cases.</p><p>Riku on the other hand took far longer for Donald to warm up to and given that their first meeting consisted of him trying to steal an innocent boy’s heart and then attempting to kill all of them repeatedly, you couldn’t exactly blame the duck for being somewhat resistant to the idea of friendship with the silver haired teen even if his previous behaviors were due to him being influenced by Ansem. Donald Duck’s trust and loyalty was not easily earned, the only reason Riku was getting a chance at all was because of his friendship with Sora.</p><p>Even without the foundation of mistrust built between the two, forming a connection wasn’t easy for either of them. While Donald was able to form an honest bond with Kairi Kairi through magic, he didn’t share any common interests with Riku and whenever it was just them hanging out they often found themselves awkwardly trying to force some sort of friendly interaction between each other, all so that they could get along for the sake of their friends and the safety of the worlds. This went on for a while and while Donald did eventually start to let his guard down around Riku with the keyblade wielder doing much of the same, they didn’t truly become companions until they realized one major aspect that they did have in common: a desire to protect the people they cared about.</p><p>For Donald it was Mickey and Goofy, for Riku it was Sora and Kairi; but there was no denying that both of them would gladly give their lives to ensure said friends were safe. As their bonds grew stronger, so did their protective instincts which soon culminated in a midnight pact where they swore to work together as fellow guardians to ensure that all of their friends would live to see the end of the keyblade war one way or another. This pact was what allowed Donald and Riku to finally become companions and thus complete this strange family of misfits they had found themselves becoming a part of.</p><p>Speaking of family, the new arrangement they had with Yen Sid was almost domestic in a sense. Once they all started getting used to the wizard’s training regime, at least enough so that every muscle in their body wasn’t left in screaming agony, the group found themselves being left with more and more free time as they needed less and less to get a proper rest. They decided to spend that free time with each other, playing games, swapping stories, and occasionally getting into mischievous situations like the prank they pulled on Yen Sid that was never to be spoken of.</p><p>It was probably the closest Donald had come to a sense of normalcy since he had arrived in this dimension and honestly it was a welcome change.</p><p>Not to say that they didn’t go on adventures now and again; sometimes Yen Sid spotted minor threats amongst the worlds that they needed to go out and deal with, other times they would just randomly stumble into an adventure like when they came across that really weird abandoned theme park world Yen Sid had created in his study.</p><p>Donald shuddered at the thought. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget those weird animatronic versions of themselves, they looked like something out of a horror game’</p><p>But those were always smaller, less risky adventures that didn’t determine the fate of the universe itself which served as yet another breath of fresh air compared to their usual fare. Between those mini adventures and the warmth of the down time, Donald almost felt like he was back home with….</p><p>With Scrooge and Della…..</p><p>“Donald?” Asked Goofy. “You doing alright over there?”</p><p>Shaking himself out of his inner thoughts, Donald turned to address his friend. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”</p><p>“Because you’ve been staring at that pasta sauce for a good five minutes now, dontcha think you should stir it a bit?”</p><p>Donald’s head snapped down as he realized that he was indeed standing over a bubbling saucepan full of pasta sauce, spoon clutched in hand. It would appear as though he had gotten a bit too caught up in thought for the last few minutes.</p><p>“Whoops, sorry.” the duck said as he started to stir the sauce, pushing his previous line of thinking onto the backburner so he could focus on getting dinner ready.</p><p>“Hey Donald?” Kairi asked.</p><p>“Yes, Kairi?”</p><p>“You think Sora and the others will be back soon from their exam?” The girl said. “They’ve been gone for awhile now.”</p><p>‘Ah right, the mark of mastery exam.’ Donald thought to himself.</p><p>It had been a bit quieter around their living quarters for the past two weeks with half of their party gone. Yen Sid had approached the keyblade wielders and told them they had come far enough in their training that they now had the opportunity to become full on keyblade masters by completing the mark of mastery exam, Donald was a bit unclear on the details as was Goofy due to the fact that their friends were forced to be rather tight lipped about it. But the basic premise was that they would have to go on a short pilgrimage to the sleeping worlds (whatever those were) in order to obtain the power of waking (whatever that was); the important thing was that Donald, Goofy, and Kairi all had to stay behind because the former two weren’t keyblade wielders while the latter simply wasn’t skilled enough to qualify. So they stayed behind while Mickey, Sora, and Riku had their own little adventure.</p><p>Yen Sid has also been making himself scarce lately, spending most of his time in his study working on a ‘project’ as he coined it that would be instrumental in battling Xenanort when he finally resurfaced; leaving the trio to maintain their own training regime.</p><p>The duck wasn’t exactly happy about the situation, being away from his friends and all, but there wasn’t much any of them could do about it other than wait.</p><p>“It’s been two weeks Kairi, while I don’t know how long the exam usually takes I’m sure they’ll be back any-”</p><p>The kitchen door suddenly slamming open caused the entire room to jump up in surprise, Donald knocking over the pot of tomato sauce in the process which promptly painted the entire floor a deep red.</p><p>The mage probably would have been more upset at the prospect of ruining their dinner, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had three battered and bruised keyblade wielders standing in the doorway with haunted looks upon their faces.</p><p>Kairi was on her feet first. “Guys? Is something wrong?”</p><p>“Where’s Yen Sid?!” Riku spat, ignoring the question.</p><p>“Hang on there fellas, you’re in pretty rough shape. Let’s get you fixed up with-” Goofy started</p><p>“No time Goofy!” Mickey interrupted his friend. “We need to see Yen Sid now, we’ve got a big problem!”</p><p>“What kind of problem can’t wait a few seconds?” Asked Donald.</p><p>Sora looked the mage dead in the eye and simply uttered the words. “Xehanort’s back.”</p><p>Yep, that was a pretty big problem.</p>
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</div><p>After dragging master Yen Sid out of his study, the keyblade wielders laid out the whole situation:<br/>
Their mark of mastery exam had started out normally, the trio making great progress towards mastering the power of waking until they were lured into a trap and Xehanort showed up out of nowhere, having finally reformed after having his heartless and nobody destroyed, and captured Sora to use as a vessel for his evil plans. Riku and Mickey just narrowly saved the boy from being Norted, a few seconds longer and Sora might have had all of his power sapped from his body and leaving him just as weak and inexperienced as he was when he first started his training; it was a good thing that didn’t happen, it would have been just awful if Sora lost all of his abilities and had to start again from the beginning at such a critical moment. After that they essentially fled from Xehanort’s forces in order and arrived back home; while Mickey and Riku did manage to access the power of waking as a result of their actions and become keyblade masters, Sora unfortunately failed to do the same.</p><p>It wasn’t a total loss for them however, as they managed to gain some valuable intel in regards to Xehanort’s plan. The old man planned to summon up a powerful keyblade known as the ‘X-blade’ by causing a conflict between the thirteen hearts of darkness with the seven hearts of light, which comprised the broken pieces of the aforementioned keyblade that could be used to reassemble the artifact once reunited. How he planned to bring about this conflict, none of them knew which would certainly put a damper on their efforts.</p><p>Yen Sid sighed as he sat back in his chair. “I had hoped this day wouldn’t have come so soon, you still have a lot of training left to complete, but we’re out of time so we’ll simply have to make do with what we have.”</p><p>“What’s our next move, master Yen Sid?” Asked Mickey.</p><p>The aging wizard motioned for the group to follow him into his study where he revealed what he had been working on in secret for the past few days.</p><p>In the center of the room was a massive golden, round table that held a map that stretched out to the very edges of the surface and seemed to almost dip into the table like a strange sort of bowl. There were several worlds and thousands of stars floating in the map like apples in water and several more suspended above it; even from across the room, Donald could feel the sheer magic power radiating from the map.</p><p>“Woah, what is this?” Asked Sora.</p><p>“The map of the worlds’ hearts, I created it to maintain a constant surveillance over the universe for when Xehanort eventually resurfaced. If any worlds ever begin to fall to darkness by his actions, we’ll know.” Explained the wizard.</p><p>“Ya mean like what’s happening over there?” Goofy interjected.</p><p>Yen Sid looked over to the world Goofy was referring to, Twilight Town, and saw that it was indeed being overrun by the heartless, the old man’s eyes shrinking to pinpricks.</p><p>“Yes, exactly like that!” Yen Sid sputtered. “Quickly, you three must get to Twilight Town and deal with the situation! Xehanort must already be commencing his plans!”</p><p>“Can- wait, three?” Donald said.</p><p>“Unfortunately, you, Sora, and Goofy will be the only ones holding back Xehanort’s primary forces for the moment. I’ll need Mickey, Riku, and Kairi to investigate certain...anomalies, in the realm of darkness that may hold the key to Xehanort’s defeat.”</p><p>Riku’s jaw dropped. “Wait hold on, we have to go back to the realm of darkness?!”</p><p>“You and Mickey have the most experience in the realm of darkness and Kairi’s pure heart keeps her protected from the realm’s corrupting influence, making you three the best candidates for traversing the realm. I know it may not be an ideal situation, but the matter at hand leaves us with few options.”</p><p>“But we’re a team!” Mickey protested. “We’re supposed to stick together until the end!”</p><p>“This is only a temporary arrangement, once we know the full extent of Xehanort’s plans and how to put a stop to them we will be able to launch a combined assault against the master of darkness. Until then, you will have to part ways.”</p><p>“He’s right.” Sora affirmed. “This isn’t another adventure guys, this is an all out war. I’ve seen what Xehanort’s capable of first hand and we’ll have to do everything we can to beat him.”</p><p>The mouse huffed and relented. “Alright. But promise me you’ll keep each other safe?”</p><p>“Come on, Mick! With this crew, what could go wrong?” Goofy chuckled.</p><p>“Everything.” Riku sarcastically replied. “Just make sure you come back in one piece, I won’t forgive you if you die out there.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t dream of it Riku, now let’s get going!” Donald exclaimed.</p><p>Sora and Goofy nodded, dashing out of the room towards the gummi ship, preparing themselves for the inevitable conflicts that lay ahead.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
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</div><p>Donald felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him as they dashed through the streets of Twilight Town, it seemed like only yesterday they had been stumbling around trying to get their heads on straight after a year-long coma. Now they were back in action and ready to save the worlds from complete destruction yet again.</p><p>Of course this feeling was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the entire town seemed to be completely deserted, no locals, no heartless, and no nobodies, just blocks and blocks of empty streets; which was rather concerning for a number of reasons.</p><p>As the group started to slow down their pace, Goofy spoke up. “Where is everybody? I expected the place to be a bit more lively with Xehanort invading it and all.”</p><p>“Maybe they’re just hiding, if I was in their shoes I would be too.” Donald remarked. “Although that doesn’t explain why there aren’t any heartless running around.”</p><p>As Sora prepared to retort, a series of screams cut through the air.</p><p>“Where’d they come from?!”</p><p>“Get the ice cream later!”</p><p>“What? Hold up!”</p><p>Turning the corner, the group was met with the sight of Sora’s old friends from Twilight town, Hayner, Pence, and Olette, fleeing from an obscenely large amount of heartless that were flooding the entire street and rapidly chasing after the teens.</p><p>“Hey Sora!” Hayner exclaimed as he dashed past the group with his friends. “Hello! Goodbye!”</p><p>“Well this is new…” Said Goofy as the flood of heartless got closer.</p><p>“But it’s nothing we can’t handle.” Added Donald.</p><p>“Right! Let’s go!” Sora pulled out his keyblade and charged, his companions doing much of the same with their own weapons.</p><p>Just as the heartless were about to reach our heroes, the wave suddenly darted upwards and transformed into what could best be described as a whirlwind of darkness that stretched higher and higher into the sky. None of them knew what the heartless were doing, but it couldn’t have been anything good.</p><p>Their assumptions were soon proven correct when a female figure emerged from the tornado of heartless, an evil grin playing on her beak as she levitated above them with her staff glowing with the power of darkness.</p><p>“MAGICA!” the group shouted.</p><p>The green duck’s grin stretched even further. “Well, well, well if it isn’t Yen Sid’s favorite errand boys. Back for more of what I gave you last time?”</p><p>“We don’t have time for this, we’ve got bigger threats to deal with!” Sora barked. “Like master Xehanort!”</p><p>“Funny you should mention that name, considering I’m here on his behalf!”</p><p>“Wait, you’re working for Xehanort now? What about Maleficent?!” Donald sputtered out in disbelief.</p><p>“Ah yes, the one woman who I ever considered to be my equal. She understood me in a way no other villain did, but Xehanort offered me more power and influence than she could ever hope to achieve. It was a matter of practicality really.” Magica said with an oddly forlorn expression. “Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt a little guilty about killing her but I needed her powers to enact Xehanort’s will.”</p><p>“Oh now that’s just cold.”</p><p>“What do you expect? I’m an evil sorceress! It’s what we do!” Magica guffawed. “Besides, not only do I gain even greater control of the darkness under Xehanort’s employ, but I also get to kill all of you as a bonus.”</p><p>“You will try.” Said Sora.</p><p>“And I’d love to do so. Unfortunately you’ve caught me at a bad time so we’ll have to save that showdown for a later date, in the meantime why don’t you play with my pets? I’m sure they’ll show you a lovely time.”</p><p>Magica snapped her fingers and the heartless swirling around her suddenly dispersed, darting downwards towards the trio like a swarm of bees, while the sorceress disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.</p><p>Donald moved quickly and froze the first wave of heartless in a glacier, Sora and Goofy shattering the shadow creatures to pieces shortly after and freeing their hearts in the process. The group engaged the rest of the horde with a mixture of magic and hand to hand combat, effortlessly cutting through the heartless as they’ve done thousands of times before.</p><p>It was official, the keyblade war had begun and it was going to be the conflict to end it all.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>****************************</p>
</div><p>“ARE YOU INSANE MICKEY?!” Donald screamed from the hallway.</p><p>Huey quickly slammed the journal closed and stashed it away on instinct, not willing to risk getting caught by uncle Donald before they finished reading it, before moving with the rest of the group to peer at the scene happening just outside of their room.</p><p>“Do you not remember the pact we made all those years ago?”</p><p>Mickey said something unintelligible from the other end of the line.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter if you changed everyone’s names!” Donald shouted. “Nor does it matter if you tweaked a few events, we agreed to never breathe a word of what happened to anyone! Or have you forgotten what happened at Nomura’s keep twelve years ago?!”</p><p>Violet looked at the rest of the group and mouthed ‘Nomura’s keep?’</p><p>Donald pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Okay fine, so you can’t pull the plug on this...just...just be careful, okay? The last thing we need is to invite the forces of darkness here because you thought it would make a good movie.”</p><p>The kids quickly disappeared into the triplet’s room before Donald noticed them.</p><p>It seems as though a new piece of the puzzle has just revealed itself.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"gee Donald, how come you get to have two found families?"</p><p>In all seriousness though, I know it might be a stretch to say that Magica could kill Maleficent, but I'd like to think that our favorite evil sorceress was smart enough to take Maleficent by surprise with a bit of deception. Besides, I really wanted the duck to finally become the massive threat she was meant to be.</p><p>Also I'm going to be simplifying quite a bit of the kindgom hearts 3 plot simply because the main game got SO confusing near the end and as always I have to gloss over much of the deeper lore; but I promise that everything's going to be wrapped up nicely when this is over, no downer endings or cliffhangers here!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. the heart of the matter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
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</p>
<p>
  <span>Violet really hadn’t meant to stumble upon this new information, she hadn’t even been looking into Donald Duck’s past at all when she found it, she was just doing research for a quick school project at the library when she found it; the chances of her coming across this one specific thing through sheer random chance was astronomical.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Of course the hummingbird couldn’t exactly keep this knowledge to herself, it wouldn’t be fair to the others, so she decided to confide in her second favorite person in the world before dropping this bomb shell onto the others. Luckily, he was already in the library doing a bit of research of his own.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Huey? Do you have a moment?” Said Violet. “There’s something we need to discuss.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Can it wait? I’m this close to finishing up my essay and-” The red hatted duck was cut off when Violet pushed the book he was reading out of the way with one of her own.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Huey was about to complain, until he realized what he was looking at: it was a book on old castles both real and mythological, nothing too special if it wasn’t for the specific page it had been turned to which contained an article about an old, isolated temple in northern japan that had been rumored to be infested with strange shadow monsters before it was lost to the ages and assumed to have been a myth.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The temple’s name? Nomura’s keep.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That...that can’t be good.” Huey remarked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Violet ran one of her hands across the pages. “Judging by the text and based upon what we know about the alternate dimension your uncle traveled to as well as his outburst from yesterday, this temple may have very well been a second gateway to that dimension.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The only question is, what happened there that made Donald want to keep it buried so badly. Sure he probably hid it away for the same reason that he hid everything else but…”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The junior woodchuck trailed off when he realized that, while looking at the text, he had absentmindedly placed his hand on top of Violet’s and intertwined their fingers. Both of the young birds wound up blushing and pulling away from the contact.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh...h-how about we read through some more of Uncle Donald’s Journal?” The red triplet sputtered. “M-maybe it might shed some light on this.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, we should definitely do that!” Violet affirmed almost a bit too enthusiastically as Huey pulled out the journal from his bag.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>**************************</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“ACHOO!” Donald sneezed, still shivering from the cold.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The poor duck was currently swaddled in a blanket, cradling a bowl of hot miso soup in his hands, and stripped down to nothing but his undergarments while his uniform had been put out to dry; it wasn’t an ideal position to be in, but he didn’t have much of a choice as the alternative was having his feathers freeze solid for the second time today.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had started off so well, being dropped off into a futuristic city that looked like some weird combination between San Francisco and Tokyo; filled to the brim with cutting edge, technical wonders and its own up and coming superhero team that called themselves “big hero six.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They had spirit, sure, but with a lack of experience in fighting the heartless (or just a lack of experience in general) they got their butts handed to them and forced the trio to bail them out of a few tight spots. But a few tips about teamwork and out-of-the-box thinking, along with some good old fashioned bonding on the battlefield, gave the superhero team the leg up they needed to repel the heartless threat.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The irony of being a former superhero who was now essentially tutoring a younger generation of vigilantes on the finer points of heroics wasn’t lost on the duck; it was almost amusing actually, like things had come full circle for him, and gave him a healthy dose of nostalgia for his days as PK. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, uh, Donald?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The duck looked up at the scrawny comic nerd, Fred he believed his name was, who was responsible for his current predicament.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for what happened back there. It was totally my bad and...” Fred slowly trailed off when he took notice of the sharp glare Donald was sending his way, coupled with a faint but utterly feral growl.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He seemed to get the message very quickly. “Okay, I can see you’re in a bit of a mood. I’ll just go back over there.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald huffed as the human scrambled off, it may have been a bit mean to do that when he was trying to apologize but the duck wasn’t still steaming mad over what had happened, even if it had been an accident.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Things had been going great initially: they had battled the heartless, swapped stories, ate ice cream together, and one of the young heroes had shown an interest in studying Donald’s magic which absolutely made the mage’s day.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Then during the final battle where they fought against an evil clone of big hero six’s robot teammate, which was the result of a long and complicated series of events, Fred screwed up the aim on his frost attack and wound up encasing Donald in a glacier; effectively taking the mage out of the fight as none of them had the time to stop and thaw him out with the heartless robot breathing down their necks. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Even after the fight was over, it took them another half-hour to melt the glacier down and free Donald, who by that point had caught a serious cold. The leader of the hero team, Hiro (a name Donald felt was a little on the nose.), suggested they all stop by a small restaurant downtown that he frequented with amazing soup that was sure to warm him up.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Which brought them all to the here and now: Donald sitting in the corner nearly freezing his feathers off, while Sora was locked in an eating competition with Hiro and had everyone else cheering them on.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Still, he couldn’t complain too much though...or maybe he could; but regardless, this was just another mishap in a long string of bad luck he had been facing as of late. It was almost as if whatever malevolent force that had been inflicting misfortune and misery upon him all his life had finally tracked him down once more.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>From being hung by his cape on a statue in Olympus, to nearly getting flattened by a giant skateboard, to getting his tail feathers scorched by a factory explosion. Every world he visited found a way to get him caught up in some sort of mishap. Luckily, none of it seemed to come into play at critical moments like when they were in the middle of a fight with Xehanort’s forces; at least until now, but he digressed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Still, it wasn’t all bad.” Donald muttered to himself as he lazily stirred his soup.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In spite of his bad luck making a comeback, Donald did enjoy a lot of the new worlds and adventures their journeys had thrown their way. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Of course they had seen familiar faces like Hercules and Jack Sparrow who were just as happy to see them as they were eager to drag them into whatever problems were currently plaguing their worlds; but fighting off Hades alongside the greek pantheon and beating Davy Jones were certainly experiences Donald wasn’t going to forget anytime soon.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Those paled in comparison to the utter strangeness that these new worlds threw their way though; they were as diverse as they were bizarre.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The first world was relatively normal, the vast and mystical forests of the Kingdom of Corona almost seemed like they had been torn straight from the pages of a fantasy novel with lush forests, whimsical towns, and an evil witch going after some poor girl’s magical hair. Dealing with Flynn Ryder’s antics and Rapunzel’s enthusiasm was a headache in itself, but apart from that the whole adventure was a smooth ride.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The kingdom of Arendell was decidedly less enjoyable, primarily because Donald never really did well in the cold and having to hike through miles upon miles of snow covered forests while an emotionally unstable ice spirit threw a barrage of snow storms and evil snowmen their way was not his idea of fun. It only got worse when Donald realized that this was the world he had landed on when they had first arrived, when it was still under developed, bringing up all kinds of bad memories of how they got into this situation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Then things started to get really weird. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Being shrunken down and turned into an action figure wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary for Donald, that exact same situation had happened to him on no less than three separate occasions when he was adventuring with Scrooge and Della (the difference being that he was turned into a plushie or a voodoo doll instead of an action figure.) so this wasn’t a shocking development. No, the weird part about visiting that strange toy world was the fact that a video game series called ‘Verum Rex’ existed in that world which starred characters eerily familiar to themselves: there was a moody teen named Yozra that wielded a magic sword, a red headed court magician named Magia, and the king’s guard Aegis. It was almost like looking in a funhouse mirror and the duck couldn’t help but be a little weirded out by it, especially when that dinosaur toy kept insisting that they were the characters from the game.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Then they wound up in a monster world that changed their appearances to fit in with the locals: Sora being turned into a feline creature, Goofy became some weird bug-eyed gremlin with green skin, and Donald became a blue cyclops with wings. However, despite their freaky transformations and the fact that the world harvested the screams of children as an energy source, the denizens were actually pretty friendly and more than happy to help them fight back some of the heartless and nobodies that had started to attack the place.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And that wasn’t even mentioning Xehanort’s forces that kept making their presence known in every single world they had visited. Some how the master of darkness had managed to resurrect all the nobodies they destroyed in the world that never was and used them to form what was termed ‘the real organization thirteen.’, but outside of the returning members the new organization beared almost no resemblance to the original and was really just a glorified mercenary group under Xehanort’s employ that tried to strike them down at every turn, oddly enough each one of them went down much easier than last time which was concerning but Donald never got the chance to think too hard on it as his thoughts had been preoccupied as of late with something a bit more important:</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His family.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The duck never gave Scrooge and Della much thought when he first arrived in the kingdom hearts universe, having been too pre-occupied with locating his lost friends, saving the worlds, and well...keeping himself alive in the face of the encroaching darkness.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But now that he has his friends back, safe and sound, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the family he had left behind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald sighed as he took another sip of his soup. “They probably would have loved this, a universe filled with worlds, each with it’s own self-contained adventure. Kingdom hearts would have been their personal heaven.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span> it had been nearly seven years since he had last seen them and he was coming down with a serious case of homesickness. He missed them so badly, from Della’s pranks and airplane stuns to Scrooge’s stinginess and stories of yore, he missed their little quirks, their smiles, how they cared for him in their own unique way that only members of the duck family could. Even if he did wind up with the short end of the stick on most of the adventures they went on together, he’d gladly go back to that if it meant he could see them again even one last time.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A buzzing nearby brought the mage out of his thoughts and his eyes snapped over to the source. Before they had left Twilight Town after their encounter with Magica; Hayner, Pence, and Olette were nice enough to introduce them to new gummi tech called ‘gummi phones’. The devices were essentially just cell phones with screens that you can touch and no buttons in sight, several leaps above the flip phones Donald was much more familiar with. They were great for taking photos and staying in contact with the rest of their friends who had also gotten their own gummi phones, it made the distance between them caused by their respective missions seem that much shorter.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Picking up the phone, Donald smiled when he saw Mickey’s caller ID adorning the screen. He swore that the mouse called in almost every free moment to check in with them, likely out of fear for their safety having gone so long without them, and his concern was touching.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tapping the accept call button, Mickey Mouse’s smiling face popped up on the gummi phone.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hiya Donald! How’s my favorite mage doing?” said the mouse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Sick.” the duck let out another sneeze. “On the verge of frostbite.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What? What happened?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s just say that the heroes of this world have terrible aim.” Donald replied.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You gonna be okay?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The mage nodded. “I’ll be fine, I’ve suffered through worse.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And what about Sora and Goofy?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh they’re fine, see?” Said Donald, turning the phone around to face the rest of the group. “Just having fun with our new friends.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mickey hummed in agreement. “Well speaking of new friends, we might be making one real soon. Those anomalies in the realm of darkness Yen Sid sent us to investigate? Turns out they were caused by a trapped keyblade master who had been betrayed by master Xehanort.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, we’ve been trying to track them down ever since. If we’re lucky, they might know a few of Xehanort’s weaknesses.” The mouse explained.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s good.” Donald lamented.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The mage’s somber tone was not lost upon his key blade wielding friend, who gained a look of concern.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Something else is bothering you.” Mickey deadpanned.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What? No, no I’m just-“</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Donald, I always know when one of my friends is feeling down.” Mickey said, interrupting the duck. “Just tell me what’s happening.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The duck bowed his head and merely replied. “I miss them Mickey.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The mouse didn’t even have to ask Donald what he meant by that, he already knew exactly what his companion was talking about and motioned for him to continue.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been trying to stay focused on our own problems, but no matter where I go or what I do I just can’t seem to get my mind off all the people I left behind.” Donald sniffled. “I mean it’s been almost four years since I’ve seen the Caballeros and seven years since the last time I’ve seen my family, having you guys around has helped but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve somehow managed to lose everyone else again…”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey don’t be like that, once this keyblade war is over we’ll find a way home.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And what if there isn’t one?! We’ve been stuck here for years Mickey and we haven’t found any clues that there even is a way to get back home!” Donald snapped. “For all we know we could be stuck here for the rest of our lives, forced to abandon everyone we ever knew for….this.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mickey raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked Sora and the others?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I do, I really do! Watching him go from a scared kid in over his head into a brave, teenage hero that takes charge and kicks butt has been utterly amazing; I’m so proud of how far he’s come. But my family are the ones who come first and the thought of losing them forever….it scares me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You won’t lose them, if your family really cares about you then they’ll wait as long as it takes. In fact I bet they’re still looking for you, same as the Caballeros are.” the mouse affirmed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But what if they aren’t?” Asked Donald. “A lot can happen in four years and a lot can change in four years, we’ve proven that much. I know they wouldn’t have forgotten me, but I know they wouldn’t put their lives on hold either; while we’ve been pushing back against the forces of darkness, our friends, our family, the rest of the world, they’ve...they’ve all been carrying on without us Mickey. Even if we manage to find a way back home, we might not even recognize it anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald sighed. “And I’m not sure which is worse: returning to a home we no longer belong in or never returning home at all.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Donald, they can’t leave us behind, they wouldn’t.” Said the keyblade wielder.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How do you know? How can you be so confident they’ll wait?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That seemed to give Mickey pause, the mouse silently wracking his brain for a proper answer. Until finally, he simply pulled out a small box out of one of his pockets.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“This is how.” Mickey replied as he flipped the container open.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald’s eyes bulged at the sight of a sizable engagement ring resting inside of the silk box, the gem adorning the golden band shining with an almost ethereal glow.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What is that?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The ring I was going to propose to Minnie with.” The mouse snapped the box closed again. “I was planning on popping the old question right after our weekend together was supposed to be over, even had a whole romantic getaway planned for the two of us...guess I wound up being more than a little late.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The duck said nothing, he couldn’t say anything, how could one possibly respond to such a revelation?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mickey-” Donald began only to get cut off by the aforementioned mouse once more.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I bought the ring just before I arrived at the manor and I’ve kept it on me ever since we got here, never letting it out of my sight for even a moment, because it’s all that’s been keeping me going lately.” Mickey explained.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But what about saving the worlds? Protecting our friends?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll admit, Riku, Kairi, Sora, and all the other friends we’ve made have been some of the best pals a guy could ask for but sometimes even they aren’t enough. For the last four years all we’ve been doing is fighting and fighting, trying to hold back the darkness at all costs and this kinda stuff really wears you down Donald.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The mage nodded, knowing all too well what that felt like.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But whenever I reach a low point, whenever I think about just throwing in the towel and giving up, I just take out this ring and think of Minnie. I think about the first time we met back in high school during a theatre production of the three musketeers, our first date, our first kiss, and all the moments we’ve shared together in between; the thought of seeing her smiling face again, the sparkle in her eyes when we’re finally reunited, that’s enough to put me back on my feet and fill me with hope.” Mickey asserted.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s what my photo of Maxie’s for.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald looked up from his gummi phone just in time to see Goofy plop down next to him, an old photo in his hand.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yer not the only one that’s been thinking about this Don. Every time I wake up in the morning, the missus and Max are the first things on my mind.” the dog somberly said.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A feeling of guilt suddenly washed over the mage, here he was giving a sob story about how much he missed his sister and uncle when his best friend had been separated from his wife and son. He may have had it bad sure, but it was so much worse for Goofy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t even imagine how big Max has gotten by now, he was getting ready to start middle school the last time I saw him, I wonder if he’s doing okay without his dad to watch over him.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Goofy, I’m...I’m sorry.” Donald apologized</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Like a switch had been flipped in his brain, Goofy immediately abandoned his depressed expression and replaced it with something far more cheery. “Aw don’t worry about it Donald, I try not to focus on that sad stuff anyhow; not when we’ve got important work ta do! Sides, the only reason we haven’t found a way home is because we haven’t had the time to look.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Exactly.” Said Mickey, drawing Donald’s attention back to the phone. “Someday this’ll all be behind us and we’ll be back home with our families, until then we just have to hold onto hope and think about all the happy little reunions we’ll have. You’ll see Donald, everything will be just-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A loud explosion from Mickey’s side of the phone cut the keyblade wielder off as he looked up in horror. “RIKU?! KAIRI?! ARE YOU GUYS OKAY?!”</span>
  <span></span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re fine!” The silver haired teen shouted from a distance. “But we could use some extra hands over here!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mickey nodded and turned back to the phone. “Sorry fellas, duty calls. I’ll see you later.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The phone went dark shortly after, displaying the words ‘call ended’ upon it’s screen, leaving Goofy and Donald with nothing but the ambient noise of the restaurant and the eating competition going on only a few meters away from them that was somehow still raging.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Goofy placed a hand onto Donald’s shoulder. “Ya gonna be okay?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you?” Donald shot back.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The dog shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said it was easy, having to go on for so long not knowing if Max is safe or not….but worrying won’t do me any good, the sooner we finish up this whole ‘keyblade war’ business the sooner we can work on getting home.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re right, you guys are always right…”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks, by the way how are yer feathers?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald looked himself over and realized that the numbness that had formerly plagued his body had all but vanished, warmth now filling his form, although he was still a bit sick if the sneeze he let out was anything to go by.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Better, much better.” Donald said with a smile.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well then, how about we go join up with the others and have a bit of fun. We’ve still got plenty of time before we gotta skedaddle to the next world.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Donald stood up, discarding his empty soup bowl. “I’d like that.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Before they could however, Sora frantically rushed past the two of them with one hand on his stomach and the other covering his mouth; the boy was looking a particularly pale shade of green.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Between his appearance and the earlier eating competition, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening nor where the boy was going.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey uh, is he gonna be okay?” Asked another member of big hero six, Wasabi if Donald recalls correctly.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Sora’s tough, he’ll be fine. But we’d better get in there and make sure he gets cleaned up, the last thing we need is the gummi ship smelling like vomit for the rest of the trip.” Donald remarked as he padded over to the bathroom with Goofy in tow.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>As they went to aid their teenage friend who was currently hunched over a porcelain bowl, spewing out the remnants of </span>
  <span>San Fransokyo’s finest cuisine, Donald’s mind began to wander back to his old concerns but he quickly snuffed those thoughts out.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Goofy was right, he couldn’t worry about that stuff right now with everything he already had on his plate as it was. It didn’t matter how long it took them to win this war and find a way home, he knew that everyone who cared about him would await his return as long as they needed too; he’d always have a place to go back home. Even if the worst scenario came to pass and the three of them were stuck in this dimension forever...Donald couldn’t think of any better companions to spend the rest of his days with.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Things were going to be okay for all of them, Donald knew it would, they just had to keep pushing forwards like they always did.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*****************************</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I never thought about that.” Huey muttered as he closed the book, their time in the library running short.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Never thought about what?” Asked Violet.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The isolation factor. Being thrown into an entirely new world, separated from almost everyone you ever knew, facing down threats you can barely even comprehend. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been on Uncle Donald.” the red hatted triplet muttered. “Sure, mom went through something like that for a decade on the moon but all she had to do was survive in a hostile wasteland; Uncle Donald had to fight in a mystical war that he might have not come back from.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Having to go through such experiences may have caused some latent PTSD, of which your uncle clearly has shown to be susceptible to in the past, this might be why he’s so disturbed by any mention of that alternate world itself.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But that doesn’t explain how it all connects to Nomura’s keep and why Donald brought that location up specifically.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Violet shrugged. “All we can do is keep reading and hope to find out, I would assume that Donald Duck would have made at least one entry in his journal explaining it.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>a brief reprieve before we get a few back to back, action packed, battle chapters.</p>
<p>Sorry this took so long, I've been in a bit of a slump lately and the muse has been rather uncooperative but I'm trying to coax it out so I can get this done; I promised to see this through and I stand by that principle.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>timelines I'm going to be covering in this tale:<br/>- paperinik the new adventures<br/>- donald in the navy<br/>- doubleduck<br/>- the legend of the three cabarellos<br/>- kingdom hearts<br/>- ducktales (2017)</p><p>I know it seems like a lot and it is, but I will find a way to combine all of these into one coherent timeline.<br/>(also I adopted this from another writer who has deleted the original story, I can't quite remember who they were but I will gladly tag them as soon as I manage to track them down)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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